Tunable coupling of superconducting qubits has been widely studied due to its importance for isolated gate operations in scalable quantum processor architectures. Here, we demonstratea tunable qubit-qubit coupler based on a floating transmon device which allows us to place qubits at least 2 mm apart from each other while maintaining over 50 MHz coupling between the coupler and the qubits. In the introduced tunable-coupler design, both the qubit-qubit and the qubit-coupler couplings are mediated by two waveguides instead of relying on direct capacitive couplings between the components, reducing the impact of the qubit-qubit distance on the couplings. This leaves space for each qubit to have an individual readout resonator and a Purcell filter needed for fast high-fidelity readout. In addition, the large qubit-qubit distance reduces unwanted non-nearest neighbor coupling and allows multiple control lines to cross over the structure with minimal crosstalk. Using the proposed flexible and scalable architecture, we demonstrate a controlled-Z gate with (99.81±0.02)% fidelity.
Superconducting qubits are one of the most promising candidates to implement quantum computers. The superiority of superconducting quantum computers over any classical device in simulatingrandom but well-determined quantum circuits has already been shown in two independent experiments and important steps have been taken in quantum error correction. However, the currently wide-spread qubit designs do not yet provide high enough performance to enable practical applications or efficient scaling of logical qubits owing to one or several following issues: sensitivity to charge or flux noise leading to decoherence, too weak non-linearity preventing fast operations, undesirably dense excitation spectrum, or complicated design vulnerable to parasitic capacitance. Here, we introduce and demonstrate a superconducting-qubit type, the unimon, which combines the desired properties of high non-linearity, full insensitivity to dc charge noise, insensitivity to flux noise, and a simple structure consisting only of a single Josephson junction in a resonator. We measure the qubit frequency, ω01/(2π), and anharmonicity α over the full dc-flux range and observe, in agreement with our quantum models, that the qubit anharmonicity is greatly enhanced at the optimal operation point, yielding, for example, 99.9% and 99.8% fidelity for 13-ns single-qubit gates on two qubits with (ω01,α)=(4.49 GHz,434 MHz)×2π and (3.55 GHz,744 MHz)×2π, respectively. The energy relaxation time T1≲10 μs is stable for hours and seems to be limited by dielectric losses. Thus, future improvements of the design, materials, and gate time may promote the unimon to break the 99.99% fidelity target for efficient quantum error correction and possible quantum advantage with noisy systems.
Degenerate parametric amplifiers (DPAs) exhibit the unique property of phase-sensitive gain and can be used to noiselessly amplify small signals or squeeze field fluctuations beneaththe vacuum level. In the microwave domain, these amplifiers have been utilized to measure qubits in elementary quantum processors, search for dark matter, facilitate high-sensitivity spin resonance spectroscopy and have even been proposed as the building blocks for a measurement based quantum computer. Until now, microwave DPAs have almost exclusively been made from nonlinear Josephson junctions, which exhibit high-order nonlinearities that limit their dynamic range and squeezing potential. In this work we investigate a new microwave DPA that exploits a nonlinearity engineered from kinetic inductance. The device has a simple design and displays a dynamic range that is four orders of magnitude greater than state-of-the-art Josephson DPAs. We measure phase sensitive gains up to 50 dB and demonstrate a near-quantum-limited noise performance. Additionally, we show that the higher-order nonlinearities that limit other microwave DPAs are almost non-existent for this amplifier, which allows us to demonstrate its exceptional squeezing potential by measuring the deamplification of coherent states by as much as 26 dB.