Superconducting circuits with coupler architecture receive considerable attention due to their advantages in tunability and scalability. Although single-qubit gates with low error have been achieved, high-fidelity two-qubit gates in coupler architecture are still challenging. This paper pays special attention to examining the gate error sources and primarily concentrates on the related physical mechanism of ZZ parasitic couplings using a systematic effective Hamiltonian approach. Benefiting from the effective Hamiltonian, we provide simple and straightforward insight into the ZZ parasitic couplings that were investigated previously from numerical and experimental perspectives. The analytical results obtained provide exact quantitative conditions for eliminating ZZ parasitic couplings, and trigger four novel realizable parameter regions in which higher fidelity two-qubit gates are expected. Beyond the numerical simulation, we also successfully drive a simple analytical result of the two-qubit gate error from which the trade-off effect between qubit energy relaxation effects and ZZ parasitic couplings is understood, and the resulting two-qubit gate error can be estimated straightforwardly. Our study opens up new opportunities to implement high-fidelity two-qubit gates in superconducting coupler architecture.
Superconducting circuits with coupler architecture receive considerable attention due to their advantages in tunability and scalability. Although single-qubit gates with low error have been achieved, high-fidelity two-qubit gates in coupler architecture are still challenging. This paper pays special attention to examining the gate error sources and primarily concentrates on the related physical mechanism of ZZ parasitic couplings using a systematic effective Hamiltonian approach. Benefiting from the effective Hamiltonian, we provide simple and straightforward insight into the ZZ parasitic couplings that were investigated previously from numerical and experimental perspectives. The analytical results obtained provide exact quantitative conditions for eliminating ZZ parasitic couplings, and trigger four novel realizable parameter regions in which higher fidelity two-qubit gates are expected. Beyond the numerical simulation, we also successfully drive a simple analytical result of the two-qubit gate error from which the trade-off effect between qubit energy relaxation effects and ZZ parasitic couplings is understood, and the resulting two-qubit gate error can be estimated straightforwardly. Our study opens up new opportunities to implement high-fidelity two-qubit gates in superconducting coupler architecture.
A major challenge for scaling up superconducting quantum computers is unwanted couplings between qubits, which lead to always-on ZZ couplings that impact gate fidelities by shifting energy levels conditional on qubit states. To tackle this challenge, we introduce analytical and numerical techniques, including a diagrammatic perturbation theory and a state-assignment algorithm. Together, these tools enable us to explain the emergence of ZZ coupling in three linked pictures, where each picture tells us more about the underlying mechanisms creating the ZZ coupling. These pictures generalize previous efforts, which focused on specific setups and a single mechanism. The deeper understanding that we provide of the mechanisms behind the ZZ coupling facilitate finding parameter regions of weak and strong ZZ coupling. We showcase our techniques for a system consisting of two fixed-frequency transmon qubits connected by a flux-tunable transmon coupler. There, we find three types of parameter regions with zero or near-zero ZZ coupling, all of which are accessible with current technology. We furthermore find regions of strong ZZ coupling nearby, which may be used to implement adiabatic controlled-phase gates and quantum simulations. Our framework is applicable to many types of qubits and opens up for the design of large-scale quantum computers with improved gate fidelities.
The design of coupler-based superconducting two-qubit gates simplifies circuit layout and alleviate frequency crowding, thereby enhancing the scalability and flexibility of quantum chips. However, in such architectures, a trade-off often exists between suppressing crosstalk and reducing gate duration, and how to achieve synergistic optimization of both remains an open challenge. To address this, this paper proposes a coupler-assisted superconducting two-qubit geometric gate scheme oriented towards crosstalk robustness. By introducing additional parametric degrees of freedom, the scheme steers the system evolution along desired trajectories, thereby flexibly avoiding crosstalk-sensitive operational regions. Numerical simulations demonstrate that the proposed scheme can effectively suppress crosstalk errors while enabling fast gate operations, and exhibits strong robustness against typical experimental imperfections such as qubit frequency drift. Moreover, even when accounting for unavoidable high-frequency oscillation terms and qubit decoherence in realistic physical systems, our crosstalk-robust two-qubit geometric gates still achieve high fidelity. This work provides a feasible pathway toward robust and efficient two-qubit gate implementation in superconducting quantum computation.
The design of coupler-based superconducting two-qubit gates simplifies circuit layout and alleviate frequency crowding, thereby enhancing the scalability and flexibility of quantum chips. However, in such architectures, a trade-off often exists between suppressing crosstalk and reducing gate duration, and how to achieve synergistic optimization of both remains an open challenge. To address this, this paper proposes a coupler-assisted superconducting two-qubit geometric gate scheme oriented towards crosstalk robustness. By introducing additional parametric degrees of freedom, the scheme steers the system evolution along desired trajectories, thereby flexibly avoiding crosstalk-sensitive operational regions. Numerical simulations demonstrate that the proposed scheme can effectively suppress crosstalk errors while enabling fast gate operations, and exhibits strong robustness against typical experimental imperfections such as qubit frequency drift. Moreover, even when accounting for unavoidable high-frequency oscillation terms and qubit decoherence in realistic physical systems, our crosstalk-robust two-qubit geometric gates still achieve high fidelity. This work provides a feasible pathway toward robust and efficient two-qubit gate implementation in superconducting quantum computation.
Future quantum information processors require tunable coupling architectures that can produce high-fidelity logical gates between two or more qubits. Parametric coupling is a powerful technique for generating tunable interactions between many qubits. Here, we present a highly flexible parametric coupling scheme with superconducting qubits that provides complete removal of residual Z Z coupling and the implementation of driven SWAP or SWAP-free controlled- Z ( C Z ) gates. Our fully integrated two-dimensional on-chip coupler design is only weakly flux tunable, cancels static linear coupling between the qubits, avoids internal coupler dynamics or excitations, and is extensible to multiqubit circuit-QED systems. Exploring gate fidelity versus gate duration allows us to maximize two-qubit gate fidelity, while providing insights into possible error sources for these gates. Randomized benchmarking over several hours reveals that the parametric SWAP C Z gate achieves an average fidelity of 99.44 ± 0.09 % in a gate duration of 70 ns and that a dispersively driven parametric SWAP-free C Z gate attains an average fidelity of 99.47 ± 0.07 % in only 30 ns. The fidelity remained above this value for over 8 h and peaked twice with a maximum of 99.67 ± 0.14 % . Overall, our parametric approach combines versatility, precision, speed, and high performance in one compact coupler design.
For building a scalable quantum processor with superconducting qubits, the ZZ interaction is of great concert because of relevant for implementing two-qubit gates, and the close contact between gate infidelity and its residual. Two-qubit gates with fidelity beyond fault-tolerant thresholds have been demonstrated using the ZZ interaction. However, as the performance of quantum processor improves, the residual static-ZZ can also become a performance-limiting factor for quantum gate operations and quantum error correction. Here, we introduce a scalable superconducting architecture for addressing this challenge. We demonstrate that by coupling two superconducting qubits with opposite-sign anharmonicities together, high-contrast ZZ interaction can be realized in this architecture. Thus, we can control ZZ interaction with high on/off ratio for implementing two-qubit CZ gate, or suppress it during the two-qubit gate operations using XY interaction (e.g. iSWAP). Meanwhile, the ZZ crosstalk related to neighboring spectator qubits can also be heavily suppressed in fixed coupled multi-qubit systems. This architecture could provide a promising way towards scalable superconducting quantum processor with high gate fidelity and low qubit crosstalk.
High-fidelity two-qubit gates at scale are a key requirement to realize the full promise of quantum computation and simulation. The advent and use of coupler elements to tunably control two-qubit interactions has improved operational fidelity in many-qubit systems by reducing parasitic coupling and frequency crowding issues. Nonetheless, two-qubit gate errors still limit the capability of near-term quantum applications. The reason, in part, is the existing framework for tunable couplers based on the dispersive approximation does not fully incorporate three-body multi-level dynamics, which is essential for addressing coherent leakage to the coupler and parasitic longitudinal (ZZ) interactions during two-qubit gates. Here, we present a systematic approach that goes beyond the dispersive approximation to exploit the engineered level structure of the coupler and optimize its control. Using this approach, we experimentally demonstrate CZ and ZZ-free iSWAP gates with two-qubit interaction fidelities of 99.76±0.07% and 99.87±0.23%, respectively, which are close to their T1 limits.