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arXiv:1106.0553 · Physical Review Letters

Simple All-Microwave Entangling Gate for Fixed-Frequency Superconducting Qubits

Jerry M. Chow, Antonio D. Corcoles, Jay Gambetta, Chad T. Rigetti, Blake Johnson, John A. Smolin, John Rozen, George Keefe, Mary Beth Rothwell, M. B. Ketchen, Matthias Steffen

Published Aug 17, 2011• 461 citations
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Abstract

We demonstrate an all-microwave two-qubit gate on superconducting qubits which are fixed in frequency at optimal bias points. The gate requires no additional subcircuitry and is tunable via the amplitude of microwave irradiation on one qubit at the transition frequency of the other. We use the gate to generate entangled states with a maximal extracted concurrence of 0.88, and quantum process tomography reveals a gate fidelity of 81%.

DOI
10.1103/physrevlett.107.080502

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We demonstrate an all-microwave two-qubit gate on superconducting qubits which are fixed in frequency at optimal bias points. The gate requires no additional subcircuitry and is tunable via the amplitude of microwave irradiation on one qubit at the transition frequency of the other. We use the gate to generate entangled states with a maximal extracted concurrence of 0.88, and quantum process tomography reveals a gate fidelity of 81%.
A register of quantum bits with fixed transition frequencies and weakly coupled to one another through simple linear circuit elements is an experimentally minimal architecture for a small-scale superconducting quantum information processor. Presently, the known schemes for implementing two-qubit gates in this system require microwave signals having amplitudes and frequencies precisely tuned to meet a resonance condition, leaving only the signal phases as free experimentally adjustable parameters. Here, we report a minimal and robust microwave scheme to generate fast, tunable universal two-qubit gates: simply irradiate one qubit (the ``control'') at the transition frequency of another (the ``target''). The effective coupling between them is then switched on by tuning only the frequency of this single drive tone; the drive amplitude adjusts the effective coupling strength; and the drive phase selects the particular two-qubit gate implemented. This cross-resonance effect turns on linearly with the ratio of the drive amplitude $\ensuremath{\Omega}$ to the qubit-qubit detuning $\ensuremath{\Delta}$, as compared with earlier proposals that turn on as ${(\ensuremath{\Omega}/\ensuremath{\Delta})}^{4}$.
We introduce a new entangling gate between two fixed-frequency qubits statically coupled via a microwave resonator bus which combines the following desirable qualities: all-microwave control, appreciable qubit separation for reduction of crosstalk and leakage errors and the ability to function as a two-qubit conditional-phase gate. A fixed, always-on interaction is explicitly designed between higher energy (non-computational) states of two transmon qubits, and then a conditional-phase gate is 'activated' on the otherwise unperturbed qubit subspace via a microwave drive. We implement this microwave-activated conditional-phase gate with a fidelity from quantum process tomography of ∼ 87%.
Generating high-fidelity, tunable entanglement between qubits is crucial for realizing gate-based quantum computation. In superconducting circuits, tunable interactions are often implemented using flux-tunable qubits or coupling elements, adding control complexity and noise sources. Here, we realize a tunable ZZZZZZ interaction between two transmon qubits with fixed frequencies and fixed coupling, induced by driving both transmons off-resonantly. We show tunable coupling over one order of magnitude larger than the static coupling, and change the sign of the interaction, enabling cancellation of the idle coupling. Further, this interaction is amenable to large quantum processors: the drive frequency can be flexibly chosen to avoid spurious transitions, and because both transmons are driven, it is resilient to microwave crosstalk. We apply this interaction to implement a controlled phase (CZ) gate with a gate fidelity of 99.43(1)%99.43(1)\%99.43(1)% as measured by cycle benchmarking, and we find the fidelity is limited by incoherent errors.
The superconducting fluxonium circuit is an artificial atom with a strongly anharmonic spectrum: When biased at a half flux quantum, the lowest qubit transition is an order of magnitude smaller in frequency than those to higher levels. Similar to conventional atomic systems, such a frequency separation between the computational and noncomputational subspaces allows independent optimizations of the qubit coherence and two-qubit interactions. Here, we describe a controlled-ZZZ gate for two fluxoniums connected either capacitively or inductively, with qubit transitions fixed near 500MHz500\phantom{\rule{3.33333pt}{0ex}}\mathrm{MHz}500MHz. The gate is activated by a microwave drive at a resonance involving the second excited state. We estimate intrinsic gate fidelities over 99.9% with gate times below 100 ns.
Scaling up a superconducting quantum computer will likely require quantum communication between remote chips, which can be implemented using an itinerant microwave photon in a transmission line. To realize high-fidelity communication, it is essential to control the frequency and temporal shape of the microwave photon. In this work, we demonstrate the generation of frequency-tunable shaped microwave photons without resorting to any frequency-tunable circuit element. We develop a framework that treats a microwave resonator as a band-pass filter mediating the interaction between a superconducting qubit and the modes in the transmission line. This interpretation allows us to stimulate the photon emission by an off-resonant drive signal. We characterize how the frequency and temporal shape of the generated photon depends on the frequency and amplitude of the drive signal. By modulating the drive amplitude and frequency, we achieve a frequency tunability of 40 MHz while maintaining the photon mode shape time symmetric. Through measurements of the quadrature amplitudes of the emitted photons, we demonstrate a consistently high state and process fidelities around 95% across the tunable frequency range. Our hardware-efficient approach eliminates the need for additional biasing lines typically required for frequency tuning, offering a simplified architecture for scalable quantum communication.
Generating high-fidelity, tunable entanglement between qubits is crucial for realizing gate-based quantum computation. In superconducting circuits, tunable interactions are often implemented using flux-tunable qubits or coupling elements, adding control complexity and noise sources. Here, we realize a tunable ZZ interaction between two transmon qubits with fixed frequencies and fixed coupling, induced by driving both transmons off resonantly. We show tunable coupling over 1 order of magnitude larger than the static coupling, and change the sign of the interaction, enabling cancellation of the idle coupling. Further, this interaction is amenable to large quantum processors: the drive frequency can be flexibly chosen to avoid spurious transitions, and because both transmons are driven, it is resilient to microwave cross talk. We apply this interaction to implement a controlled phase (CZ) gate with a gate fidelity of 99.43(1)% as measured by cycle benchmarking, and we find the fidelity is limited by incoherent errors.