The ability to execute high-fidelity operations is crucial to scaling up quantum devices to large numbers of qubits. However, signal distortions originating from non-linear componentsin the control lines can limit the performance of single-qubit gates. In this work, we use a measurement based on error amplification to characterize and correct the small single-qubit rotation errors originating from the non-linear scaling of the qubit drive rate with the amplitude of the programmed pulse. With our hardware, and for a 15-ns pulse, the rotation angles deviate by up to several degrees from a linear model. Using purity benchmarking, we find that control errors reach 2×10−4, which accounts for half of the total gate error. Using cross-entropy benchmarking, we demonstrate arbitrary-angle single-qubit gates with coherence-limited errors of 2×10−4 and leakage below 6×10−5. While the exact magnitude of these errors is specific to our setup, the presented method is applicable to any source of non-linearity. Our work shows that the non-linearity of qubit drive line components imposes a limit on the fidelity of single-qubit gates, independent of improvements in coherence times, circuit design, or leakage mitigation when not corrected for.
Quantum computers hold the promise of solving computational problems which are intractable using conventional methods. For fault-tolerant operation quantum computers must correct errorsoccurring due to unavoidable decoherence and limited control accuracy. Here, we demonstrate quantum error correction using the surface code, which is known for its exceptionally high tolerance to errors. Using 17 physical qubits in a superconducting circuit we encode quantum information in a distance-three logical qubit building up on recent distance-two error detection experiments. In an error correction cycle taking only 1.1μs, we demonstrate the preservation of four cardinal states of the logical qubit. Repeatedly executing the cycle, we measure and decode both bit- and phase-flip error syndromes using a minimum-weight perfect-matching algorithm in an error-model-free approach and apply corrections in postprocessing. We find a low error probability of 3% per cycle when rejecting experimental runs in which leakage is detected. The measured characteristics of our device agree well with a numerical model. Our demonstration of repeated, fast and high-performance quantum error correction cycles, together with recent advances in ion traps, support our understanding that fault-tolerant quantum computation will be practically realizable.
Quantum computing crucially relies on the ability to efficiently characterize the quantum states output by quantum hardware. Conventional methods which probe these states through directmeasurements and classically computed correlations become computationally expensive when increasing the system size. Quantum neural networks tailored to recognize specific features of quantum states by combining unitary operations, measurements and feedforward promise to require fewer measurements and to tolerate errors. Here, we realize a quantum convolutional neural network (QCNN) on a 7-qubit superconducting quantum processor to identify symmetry-protected topological (SPT) phases of a spin model characterized by a non-zero string order parameter. We benchmark the performance of the QCNN based on approximate ground states of a family of cluster-Ising Hamiltonians which we prepare using a hardware-efficient, low-depth state preparation circuit. We find that, despite being composed of finite-fidelity gates itself, the QCNN recognizes the topological phase with higher fidelity than direct measurements of the string order parameter for the prepared states.
High fidelity two-qubit gates exhibiting low crosstalk are essential building blocks for gate-based quantum information processing. In superconducting circuits two-qubit gates are typicallybased either on RF-controlled interactions or on the in-situ tunability of qubit frequencies. Here, we present an alternative approach using a tunable cross-Kerr-type ZZ-interaction between two qubits, which we realize by a flux-tunable coupler element. We control the ZZ-coupling rate over three orders of magnitude to perform a rapid (38 ns), high-contrast, low leakage (0.14 %) conditional-phase CZ gate with a fidelity of 97.9 % without relying on the resonant interaction with a non-computational state. Furthermore, by exploiting the direct nature of the ZZ-coupling, we easily access the entire conditional-phase gate family by adjusting only a single control parameter.