Scalable Fluxonium-Transmon Architecture for Error Corrected Quantum Processors

  1. Lukas Heunisch,
  2. Longxiang Huang,
  3. Stephan Tasler,
  4. Johannes Schirk,
  5. Florian Wallner,
  6. Verena Feulner,
  7. Bijita Sarma,
  8. Klaus Liegener,
  9. Christian M. F. Schneider,
  10. Stefan Filipp,
  11. and Michael J. Hartmann
We propose a hybrid quantum computing architecture composed of alternating fluxonium and transmon qubits, that are coupled via transmon tunable couplers. We show that this system offers
excellent scaling properties, characterized by engineered zero ZZ-crosstalk in the idle regime, a substantial reduction of level-crowding challenges through the alternating arrangement of different qubit types within the lattice, and parameter regimes that circumvent the capacitive loading problem commonly associated with fluxoniums. In numerical simulations, we show a parametrically driven CZ-gate that achieves a closed-system infidelity that is orders of magnitude below the coherence limit for gate durations ≳30ns using a two-tone flux pulse on the tunable coupler. Furthermore, we show that this gate scheme retains its fidelity in the presence of spectator qubits, making it a scalable solution for large lattices. Moreover, for the implementation of error correcting codes, our approach can leverage the long coherence times and large non-linearities of fluxoniums as data qubits, while fixed-frequency transmons with established readout techniques can serve as measurement ancillas.

Protected Fluxonium Control with Sub-harmonic Parametric Driving

  1. Johannes Schirk,
  2. Florian Wallner,
  3. Longxiang Huang,
  4. Ivan Tsitsilin,
  5. Niklas Bruckmoser,
  6. Leon Koch,
  7. David Bunch,
  8. Niklas J. Glaser,
  9. Gerhard B. P. Huber,
  10. Martin Knudsen,
  11. Gleb Krylov,
  12. Achim Marx,
  13. Frederik Pfeiffer,
  14. Lea Richard,
  15. Federico A. Roy,
  16. João H. Romeiro,
  17. Malay Singh,
  18. Lasse Södergren,
  19. Etienne Dionis,
  20. Dominique Sugny,
  21. Max Werninghaus,
  22. Klaus Liegener,
  23. Christian M. F. Schneider,
  24. and Stefan Filipp
Protecting qubits from environmental noise while maintaining strong coupling for fast high-fidelity control is a central challenge for quantum information processing. Here, we demonstrate
a novel control scheme for superconducting fluxonium qubits that eliminates qubit decay through the control channel by reducing the environmental density of states at the transition frequency. Adding a low-pass filter on the flux line allows for flux-biasing and at the same time coherently controlling the fluxonium qubit by parametrically driving it at integer fractions of its transition frequency. We compare the filtered to the unfiltered configuration and find a five times longer T1, and ten times improved T2-echo time in the protected case. We demonstrate coherent control with up to 11-photon sub-harmonic drives, highlighting the strong non-linearity of the fluxonium potential. We experimentally determine Rabi frequencies and drive-induced frequency shifts in excellent agreement with numerical and analytical calculations. Furthermore, we show the equivalence of a 3-photon sub-harmonic drive to an on-resonance drive by benchmarking sub-harmonic gate fidelities above 99.94 %. These results open up a scalable path for full qubit control via a single protected channel, strongly suppressing qubit decoherence caused by control lines.