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arXiv:2207.01460 · Physical Review Applied

Tunable Superconducting Flux Qubits with Long Coherence Times

Tikai Chang, Tamar Jehuda Cohen, Itamar Holzman, Gianluigi Catelani, Michael Stern

Published Feb 24, 2023• 17 citations
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Abstract

In this work, we study a series of tunable flux qubits inductively coupled to a coplanar waveguide resonator fabricated on a sapphire substrate. Each qubit includes an asymmetric superconducting quantum interference device, which is controlled by the application of an external magnetic field and acts as a tunable Josephson junction. The tunability of the qubits is typically $\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}3.5\phantom{\rule{0.2em}{0ex}}\mathrm{GHz}$ around their central gap frequency. The measured relaxation times are limited by dielectric losses in the substrate and can attain ${T}_{1}\ensuremath{\sim}8\phantom{\rule{0.2em}{0ex}}\text{\ensuremath{\mu}}\mathrm{s}$. The echo dephasing times are limited by flux noise even at optimal points and reach ${T}_{2E}\ensuremath{\sim}4\phantom{\rule{0.2em}{0ex}}\text{\ensuremath{\mu}}\mathrm{s}$, almost an order of magnitude longer than state of the art.

DOI
10.1103/physrevapplied.19.024066

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In this work, we study a series of tunable flux qubits inductively coupled to a coplanar waveguide resonator fabricated on a sapphire substrate. Each qubit includes an asymmetric superconducting quantum interference device, which is controlled by the application of an external magnetic field and acts as a tunable Josephson junction. The tunability of the qubits is typically \ifmmode±\else\textpm\fi3.5GHz\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}3.5\phantom{\rule{0.2em}{0ex}}\mathrm{GHz}\ifmmode±\else\textpm\fi3.5GHz around their central gap frequency. The measured relaxation times are limited by dielectric losses in the substrate and can attain T1\ensuremath∼8\ensuremath\mus{T}_{1}\ensuremath{\sim}8\phantom{\rule{0.2em}{0ex}}\text{\ensuremath{\mu}}\mathrm{s}T1​\ensuremath∼8\ensuremath\mus. The echo dephasing times are limited by flux noise even at optimal points and reach T2E\ensuremath∼4\ensuremath\mus{T}_{2E}\ensuremath{\sim}4\phantom{\rule{0.2em}{0ex}}\text{\ensuremath{\mu}}\mathrm{s}T2E​\ensuremath∼4\ensuremath\mus, almost an order of magnitude longer than state of the art.
We present measurements of superconducting flux qubits embedded in a three dimensional copper cavity. The qubits are fabricated on a sapphire substrate and are measured by coupling them inductively to an on-chip superconducting resonator located in the middle of the cavity. At their flux-insensitive point, all measured qubits reach an intrinsic energy relaxation time in the 6-20 μs range and a pure dephasing time comprised between 3 and 10 μs. This significant improvement over previous works opens the way to the coherent coupling of a flux qubit to individual spins.
The scalable application of quantum information science will stand on reproducible and controllable high-coherence quantum bits (qubits). Here, we revisit the design and fabrication of the superconducting flux qubit, achieving a planar device with broad frequency tunability, strong anharmonicity, high reproducibility, and relaxation times in excess of 40 μ40\,\mu40μs at its flux-insensitive point. Qubit relaxation times T1T_1T1​ across 22 qubits are consistently matched with a single model involving resonator loss, ohmic charge noise, and 1/f flux noise, a noise source previously considered primarily in the context of dephasing. We furthermore demonstrate that qubit dephasing at the flux-insensitive point is dominated by residual thermal photons in the readout resonator. The resulting photon shot noise is mitigated using a dynamical decoupling protocol, resulting in T2≈85 μT_2\approx 85\,\muT2​≈85μs, approximately the 2T12T_12T1​ limit. In addition to realizing an improved flux qubit, our results uniquely identify photon shot noise as limiting T2T_2T2​ in contemporary qubits based on transverse qubit-resonator interaction.
We present measurements of superconducting flux qubits embedded in a three dimensional copper cavity. The qubits are fabricated on a sapphire substrate and are measured by coupling them inductively to an on-chip superconducting resonator located in the middle of the cavity. At their flux-insensitive point, all measured qubits reach an intrinsic energy relaxation time in the 6-20 microseconds range and a pure dephasing time comprised between 3 and 10 microseconds. This significant improvement over previous works opens the way to the coherent coupling of a flux-qubit to individual spins.
Abstract The scalable application of quantum information science will stand on reproducible and controllable high-coherence quantum bits (qubits). Here, we revisit the design and fabrication of the superconducting flux qubit, achieving a planar device with broad-frequency tunability, strong anharmonicity, high reproducibility and relaxation times in excess of 40 μs at its flux-insensitive point. Qubit relaxation times T 1 across 22 qubits are consistently matched with a single model involving resonator loss, ohmic charge noise and 1/f -flux noise, a noise source previously considered primarily in the context of dephasing. We furthermore demonstrate that qubit dephasing at the flux-insensitive point is dominated by residual thermal-photons in the readout resonator. The resulting photon shot noise is mitigated using a dynamical decoupling protocol, resulting in T 2 ≈85 μs, approximately the 2 T 1 limit. In addition to realizing an improved flux qubit, our results uniquely identify photon shot noise as limiting T 2 in contemporary qubits based on transverse qubit–resonator interaction.
We demonstrate coherent control and measurement of a superconducting qubit coupled to a superconducting coplanar waveguide resonator with a dynamically tunable qubit-cavity coupling strength. Rabi oscillations are measured for several coupling strengths showing that the qubit transition can be turned off by a factor of more than 1500. We show how the qubit can still be accessed in the off state via fast flux pulses. We perform pulse delay measurements with synchronized fast flux pulses on the device and observe T1{T}_{1}T1​ and T2{T}_{2}T2​ times of 1.6 and 1.9 $\ensuremath{\mu}$s, respectively. This work demonstrates how this qubit can be incorporated into quantum architectures.
Superconducting flux qubits are promising candidates for the physical realization of a scalable quantum processor. Indeed, these circuits may have both a small decoherence rate and a large anharmonicity. These properties enable the application of fast quantum gates with high fidelity and reduce scaling limitations due to frequency crowding. The major difficulty of flux qubits' design consists of controlling precisely their transition energy---the so-called qubit gap---while keeping long and reproducible relaxation times. Solving this problem is challenging and requires extremely good control of e-beam lithography, oxidation parameters of the junctions, and sample surface. Here we present measurements of a large batch of flux qubits and demonstrate a high level of reproducibility and control of qubit gaps ($\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}0.6\phantom{\rule{0.2em}{0ex}}\mathrm{GHz}$), relaxation times (151515--$20\phantom{\rule{0.2em}{0ex}}\text{\ensuremath{\mu}}\mathrm{s}$), and pure echo dephasing times (151515--$30\phantom{\rule{0.2em}{0ex}}\text{\ensuremath{\mu}}\mathrm{s}$). These results open the way for potential applications in the fields of quantum hybrid circuits and quantum computation.