We report superconducting fluxonium qubits with coherence times largely limited by energy relaxation and reproducibly satisfying T 2 > 100 μs (T 2 > 400 μs in one device).Moreover, given the state-of-the-art values of the surface loss tangent and the 1=f flux-noise amplitude, the coherence time can be further improved beyond 1 ms.Our results violate a common viewpoint that the number of Josephson junctions in a superconducting circuit-over 10 2 here-must be minimized for best qubit coherence.We outline how the unique to fluxonium combination of long coherence time and large anharmonicity can benefit both gate-based and adiabatic quantum computing.
We report superconducting fluxonium qubits with coherence times largely limited by energy relaxation and reproducibly satisfying T 2 > 100 μs (T 2 > 400 μs in one device).Moreover, given the state-of-the-art values of the surface loss tangent and the 1=f flux-noise amplitude, the coherence time can be further improved beyond 1 ms.Our results violate a common viewpoint that the number of Josephson junctions in a superconducting circuit-over 10 2 here-must be minimized for best qubit coherence.We outline how the unique to fluxonium combination of long coherence time and large anharmonicity can benefit both gate-based and adiabatic quantum computing.
Fluxonium superconducting qubits have demonstrated long coherence times and high single- and two-qubit gate fidelities, making them a favorable building block for superconducting quantum processors. We investigate the dominant limitations to fluxonium qubit energy relaxation time T1 using a set of eight planar, aluminum-on-silicon qubits. We find that a circuit-based model for capacitive dielectric loss best captures the frequency dependence of T1, which we analyze within both a two-level and a six-level energy relaxation model. We convert the measured T1 into an effective capacitive quality factor QCeff to compare qubits on equal footing, accounting for independently estimated contributions from 1/f flux noise and radiative loss to the control and readout circuitry. We apply this methodology to compare qubits from two fabrication processes: a baseline process and one that applies a fluorine-based wet treatment prior to Josephson junction deposition. We resolve a small improvement of (13.8 ± 8.4)% in the process mean QCeff, indicating that the fluorine treatment may have reduced loss from the metal-substrate interface, but did not address the primary source of loss in these fluxonium qubits.
Superconducting quantum computing is a solid state quantum computing technology based on Josephson junction circuits. It becomes one of the most promising candidates for realizing practical quantum computer/simulator, because of its scalability, easy to coupling and control, compatibility to semiconductor technologies, etc. As the complicated electromagnetic environment in solid state metal and insulator, superconducting quantum bits (qubits) suffered from shot coherence time since its early development. In this review, we described some recently developed superconducting qubit structures, including Transmon/Xmon, Fluxonium and C-shunt flux qubit. Although these new qubit structures have very different circuit parameters and energy scales, they all find their way to effectively suppress environmental noises. As a result, their coherence time were improved significantly. Transmon, a transmission-line shunted plasma oscillation qubit, was now among the most popular structures for building a multi-qubit superconducting quantum circuit. It introduced a relatively large shunt capacitor to remarkably reduce the charge dispersion. Although the non-linearity is also decreased, by operating in a properly chosen EJ/Ec, transmon can greatly reduce the charge noise while only sacrificing a small amount of non-linearity. Xmon can be considered as a modified version of transmon. It is designed and optimized for multi-qubit operation and measurement with separate X/Y and Z control lines for each qubit, and a readout bus (a transmission line or a low-Q bandpass filter) for simultaneous readout of all the qubits. Fluxonium provide another solution for suppressing the charge noise in Cooper-pair box (CPB). It introduces a large shunt inductance to filter low-frequency offset charge in the small capacitor of the phase-slip junction (the small junction). To keep the qubit operating in the charge region, the shunt inductor should be large enough to keep the impedance larger than the superconducting impedance quantum RQ~1 kΩ. As a result, the inductance can only be provided by a large series of Josephson junctions. Fluxonium keeps the advantage of high anharmonicity of CPB. In addition, it introduces another degree of freedom: external flux Φext. Quasiparticles (electrons or holes) tunneling at the small junction add coherently to produce a ″1+cosφ″ term. As a result, when Φext= Φ0/2, dissipation caused by quasiparticle tunneling is suppressed and the energy relaxation time (T1) increases drastically. C-shunt flux qubit (CSFQ) decreases α and EJ to suppress flux noise in the qubit. While the charge noise becomes the dominant noise source, a large shunt capacitor is added to suppress the charge noise, similar to that in a transmon qubit. It is worth to notice that in CSFQ, the α decreases to below but near 1/2. As a result, the double-well potential no longer exists. The energy structure become similar to transmon, with the anharmonicity be opposite. CSFQ can get a much improved coherence time, while its anharmonicity can be larger than that of transmon. Those new superconducting qubit structures provide different solutions to improve the coherence time. Although it looks much different in circuit models and parameters, they have ideas in common, and may act as guides to other novel designs with longer coherence time. We can summarize as below. (1) The qubit circuit should be free of small superconducting islands. Charge fluctuation in small islands is a major source of decoherence. As a result, increase the area of the islands, that is, increase the capacitance becomes a straight forward way to suppress the charge noise. In Fluxonium, the small junction is connected with a large series of large junctions that there is also no small islands in the whole loop. (2) Remove superconducting loops in the qubit circuit, or minimize the loop size and loop current to suppress flux noise. (3) Bias the phase difference of the small junction to π, where dissipation caused by quasiparticle tunneling can be suppressed coherently. (4) Decrease the coupling bandwidth of qubit to the environment. In a circuit-QED readout scheme, a high-Q readout resonator that dispersively coupled to the qubit protects the qubit from exposed to the electromagnetic environment of the readout circuit. A ″Purcell filter″ can also be added to suppress such decoherence further. In conclusion, we overviewed some qubit engineering techniques or ideas to improve the coherence time, which is a very important figure for building practical quantum computer/simulator. We hope that someone can combine and optimize these ideas, while interact with developments in materials and micro-fabrication technologies, to develop novel new generation superconducting qubit structures in the near future.
Superconducting qubit designs vary in complexity from single- and few-junction systems, such as the transmon and flux qubits, to the many-junction fluxonium. Here, we consider the question of whether the many degrees of freedom in the fluxonium circuit can limit the qubit coherence time. Such a limitation is in principle possible, due to the interactions between the low-energy, highly anharmonic qubit mode and the higher-energy, weakly anharmonic collective modes. We show that so long as the coupling of the collective modes with the external electromagnetic environment is sufficiently weaker than the qubit-environment coupling, the qubit dephasing induced by the collective modes does not significantly contribute to decoherence. Therefore, the increased complexity of the fluxonium qubit does not constitute by itself a major obstacle for its use in quantum computation architectures.
Fluxonium qubits are recognized for their high coherence times and high operation fidelities. These are attributed to their unique design incorporating a superinductor, which is typically implemented using an array of over 100 Josephson junctions; 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 (50.8-mm) wafer with less than 5% variation for the phase-slip junction and less than 2% for the entire junction array. We use a compact junction array design that achieves state-of-the-art dielectric loss tangents and flux noise levels, as confirmed by multiple devices. This enables fluxonium qubits to reach energy relaxation times exceeding 1 ms at the flux-frustration point. This work paves the way for scalable, high-coherence fluxonium processors using processes compatible with complementary metal-oxide semiconductor manufacturing, marking a significant step toward practical quantum computing.
A central challenge in building a scalable quantum computer with superconducting qubits is simultaneously achieving long coherence times and fast two-qubit gates. Currently, fast (tunable) gates are obtained at the expense of coherence time. The authors propose a ``flatsonium'' qubit, based on the highly nonlinear fluxonium qubit, that yields both coherence and tunability---jackpot. Dephasing due to global flux noise is reduced by engineering flux-insensitive sweet spots in the qubit spectrum at the frequencies of interest, while leakage errors are eliminated by the typically large anharmonicity of its energy spectrum.
Using a fluxonium qubit with in situ tunability of its Josephson energy, we characterize its energy relaxation at different flux biases as well as different Josephson energy values. The relaxation rate at qubit energy values, ranging more than 1 order of magnitude around the thermal energy kBT, can be quantitatively explained by a combination of dielectric loss and 1/f flux noise with a crossover point. The amplitude of the 1/f flux noise is consistent with that extracted from the qubit dephasing measurements at the flux sensitive points. In the dielectric loss dominant regime, the loss is consistent with that arising from the electric dipole interaction with two-level-system (TLS) defects. In particular, by increasing the Josephson energy, thus decreasing the qubit frequency at the flux insensitive spot, we find that the qubit exhibits increasingly weaker coupling to TLS defects, which is desirable for high-fidelity quantum operations. Our work establishes a generic noise model for the design of high coherence fluxonium and future generations of noise resilient superconducting qubits.