Modular quantum architecture requires long-distance quantum interconnects to stitch together individual processor modules. Such interconnects, long-distance couplers or L-couplers,must support coherent quantum operation over meter-scale distances and scale to multiple connections between any two modules. Here we demonstrate four L-couplers operating between two 120-qubit IBM Nighthawk R1 superconducting qubit processors. Each L-coupler joins two Nighthawk lattice qubits through two frequency-tunable L-qubits, two RF-SQUID based „i2m“ couplers, and 80 cm of superconducting aluminum coax. Each cable installs perpendicular to the processor surface, to enable denser connections, and is joined to the chip by an indium-to-indium room temperature pressure bond made after both modules were mounted. L-coupler modes near 5 GHz, with internal quality factors of 0.86 to 1.09e6, carry relay-based state transfer at a mean network benchmarking fidelity of 99.00%, with a best link of 99.29 +/- 0.07%. We then realize distant CZ gates between lattice qubits in separate modules at a mean fidelity of 94.75%, with a best link of 96.42 +/- 0.28%, and use them to generate entangled states across the two processors, including a demonstration of simultaneous Bell pair generation using two adjacent L-couplers. These four high-fidelity L-couplers establish a practical path to scalable quantum interconnects for modular quantum computing.
In the modular superconducting quantum processor architecture, high-fidelity, meter-scale microwave interconnect between processor modules is a key technology for extending system sizebeyond constraints imposed by device manufacturing equipment, yield, and signal delivery. While there have been many demonstrations of remote state transfer between modules, these relied on tomographic experiments for benchmarking, but this technique does not reliably separate State Preparation And Measurement (SPAM) error from error per state transfer. Recent developments based on randomized benchmarking provide a compatible theory for separating these two errors. In this work, we present a module-to-module interconnect based on Tunable-Coupling Qubits (TCQs) and benchmark, in a SPAM error tolerant manner, a remote state transfer fidelity of 0.988 across a 60cm long coplanar waveguide (CPW). The state transfer is implemented via superadiabatic transitionless driving method, which suppresses intermediate excitation in internal modes of CPW. We also introduce the frame tracking technique to correct unintended qubit phase rotations before and after the state transfers, which enables the SPAM-error-tolerant benchmarking of the state transfers. We further propose and construct a remote CNOT gate between modules, composed of local CZ gates in each module and remote state transfers, and report a high gate fidelity of 0.933 using randomized benchmarking method. The remote CNOT construction and benchmarking we present is a more complete metric that fully characterizes the module to module link operation going forward as it more closely represents interconnect operation in a circuit.
Overcoming the issue of qubit-frequency fluctuations is essential to realize stable and practical quantum computing with solid-state qubits. Static ZZ interaction, which causes a frequencyshift of a qubit depending on the state of neighboring qubits, is one of the major obstacles to integrating fixed-frequency transmon qubits. Here we propose and experimentally demonstrate ZZ-interaction-free single-qubit-gate operations on a superconducting transmon qubit by utilizing a semi-analytically optimized pulse based on a perturbative analysis. The gate is designed to be robust against slow qubit-frequency fluctuations. The robustness of the optimized gate spans a few MHz, which is sufficient for suppressing the adverse effects of the ZZ interaction. Our result paves the way for an efficient approach to overcoming the issue of ZZ interaction without any additional hardware overhead.
We demonstrate fast two-qubit gates using a parity-violated superconducting qubit consisting of a capacitively-shunted asymmetric Josephson-junction loop under a finite magnetic fluxbias. The second-order nonlinearity manifesting in the qubit enables the interaction with a neighboring single-junction transmon qubit via first-order inter-qubit sideband transitions with Rabi frequencies up to 30~MHz. Simultaneously, the unwanted static longitudinal~(ZZ) interaction is eliminated with ac Stark shifts induced by a continuous microwave drive near-resonant to the sideband transitions. The average fidelities of the two-qubit gates are evaluated with randomized benchmarking as 0.967, 0.951, 0.956 for CZ, iSWAP and SWAP gates, respectively.
We propose a gate optimization method, which we call variational quantum gate optimization (VQGO). VQGO is a method to construct a target multi-qubit gate by optimizing a parametrizedquantum circuit which consists of tunable single-qubit gates with high fidelities and fixed multi-qubit gates with limited controlabilities. As an example, we apply the proposed scheme to the models relevant to superconducting qubit systems. We show in numerical simulations that the high-fidelity CNOT gate can be constructed with VQGO using cross-resonance gates with finite crosstalk. We also demonstrate that fast and a high-fidelity four-qubit syndrome extraction can be implemented with simultaneous cross-resonance drives even in the presence of non-commutative crosstalk. VQGO gives a pathway for designing efficient gate operations for quantum computers.