Spectroscopy of drive-induced unwanted state transitions in superconducting circuits

  1. W. Dai,
  2. S. Hazra,
  3. D. K. Weiss,
  4. P. D. Kurilovich,
  5. T. Connolly,
  6. H. K. Babla,
  7. S. Singh,
  8. V. R. Joshi,
  9. A. Z. Ding,
  10. P. D. Parakh,
  11. J. Venkatraman,
  12. X. Xiao,
  13. L. Frunzio,
  14. and M. H. Devoret
Microwave drives are essential for implementing control and readout operations in superconducting quantum circuits. However, increasing the drive strength eventually leads to unwanted
state transitions which limit the speed and fidelity of such operations. In this work, we systematically investigate such transitions in a fixed-frequency qubit subjected to microwave drives spanning a 9 GHz frequency range. We identify the physical origins of these transitions and classify them into three categories. (1) Resonant energy exchange with parasitic two-level systems, activated by drive-induced ac-Stark shifts, (2) multi-photon transitions to non-computational states, intrinsic to the circuit Hamiltonian, and (3) inelastic scattering processes in which the drive causes a state transition in the superconducting circuit, while transferring excess energy to a spurious electromagnetic mode or two-level system (TLS) material defect. We show that the Floquet steady-state simulation, complemented by an electromagnetic simulation of the physical device, accurately predicts the observed transitions that do not involve TLS. Our results provide a comprehensive classification of these transitions and offer mitigation strategies through informed choices of drive frequency as well as improved circuit design.

Superconducting circuit protected by two-Cooper-pair tunneling

  1. W. C. Smith,
  2. A. Kou,
  3. X. Xiao,
  4. U. Vool,
  5. and M. H. Devoret
We present a protected superconducting qubit based on an effective circuit element that only allows pairs of Cooper pairs to tunnel. These dynamics give rise to a nearly degenerate
ground state manifold indexed by the parity of tunneled Cooper pairs. We show that, when the circuit element is shunted by a large capacitance, this manifold can be used as a logical qubit that we expect to be insensitive to multiple relaxation and dephasing mechanisms.