SuperGrad: a differentiable simulator for superconducting processors

  1. Ziang Wang,
  2. Feng Wu,
  3. Hui-Hai Zhao,
  4. Xin Wan,
  5. and Xiaotong Ni
One significant advantage of superconducting processors is their extensive design flexibility, which encompasses various types of qubits and interactions. Given the large number of
tunable parameters of a processor, the ability to perform gradient optimization would be highly beneficial. Efficient backpropagation for gradient computation requires a tightly integrated software library, for which no open-source implementation is currently available. In this work, we introduce SuperGrad, a simulator that accelerates the design of superconducting quantum processors by incorporating gradient computation capabilities. SuperGrad offers a user-friendly interface for constructing Hamiltonians and computing both static and dynamic properties of composite systems. This differentiable simulation is valuable for a range of applications, including optimal control, design optimization, and experimental data fitting. In this paper, we demonstrate these applications through examples and code snippets.

Achieving millisecond coherence fluxonium through overlap Josephson junctions

  1. Fei Wang,
  2. Kannan Lu,
  3. Huijuan Zhan,
  4. Lu Ma,
  5. Feng Wu,
  6. Hantao Sun,
  7. Hao Deng,
  8. Yang Bai,
  9. Feng Bao,
  10. Xu Chang,
  11. Ran Gao,
  12. Xun Gao,
  13. Guicheng Gong,
  14. Lijuan Hu,
  15. Ruizi Hu,
  16. Honghong Ji,
  17. Xizheng Ma,
  18. Liyong Mao,
  19. Zhijun Song,
  20. Chengchun Tang,
  21. Hongcheng Wang,
  22. Tenghui Wang,
  23. Ziang Wang,
  24. Tian Xia,
  25. Hongxin Xu,
  26. Ze Zhan,
  27. Gengyan Zhang,
  28. Tao Zhou,
  29. Mengyu Zhu,
  30. Qingbin Zhu,
  31. Shasha Zhu,
  32. Xing Zhu,
  33. Yaoyun Shi,
  34. Hui-Hai Zhao,
  35. and Chunqing Deng
Fluxonium qubits are recognized for their high coherence times and high operation fidelities, attributed to their unique design incorporating over 100 Josephson junctions per superconducting
loop. However, this complexity poses significant fabrication challenges, particularly in achieving high yield and junction uniformity with traditional methods. Here, we introduce an overlap process for Josephson junction fabrication that achieves nearly 100% yield and maintains uniformity across a 2-inch wafer with less than 5% variation for the phase slip junction and less than 2% for the junction array. Our compact junction array design facilitates fluxonium qubits with energy relaxation times exceeding 1 millisecond at the flux frustration point, demonstrating consistency with state-of-the-art dielectric loss tangents and flux noise across multiple devices. This work suggests the scalability of high coherence fluxonium processors using CMOS-compatible processes, marking a significant step towards practical quantum computing.

Superconducting processor design optimization for quantum error correction performance

  1. Xiaotong Ni,
  2. Ziang Wang,
  3. Rui Chao,
  4. and Jianxin Chen
In the quest for fault-tolerant quantum computation using superconducting processors, accurate performance assessment and continuous design optimization stands at the forefront. To
facilitate both meticulous simulation and streamlined design optimization, we introduce a multi-level simulation framework that spans both Hamiltonian and quantum error correction levels, and is equipped with the capability to compute gradients efficiently. This toolset aids in design optimization, tailored to specific objectives like quantum memory performance. Within our framework, we investigate the often-neglected spatially correlated unitary errors, highlighting their significant impact on logical error rates. We exemplify our approach through the multi-path coupling scheme of fluxonium qubits.