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arXiv:2303.03668

Single-Shot Readout of a Superconducting Qubit Using a Thermal Detector

András Gunyhó, Kundu, Suman, Ma, Jian, Wei Liu, Sakari Niemelä, Giacomo Catto, Vasilii Vadimov, Visa Vesterinen, Priyank Singh, Qiming Chen, Mikko Möttönen

Published Mar 7, 2023• 1 citation
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

Measuring the state of qubits is one of the fundamental operations of a quantum computer. Currently, state-of-the-art high-fidelity single-shot readout of superconducting qubits relies on parametric amplifiers at the millikelvin stage. However, parametric amplifiers are challenging to scale beyond hundreds of qubits owing to practical size and power limitations. Nanobolometers have a multitude of properties that are advantageous for scalability and have recently shown sensitivity and speed promising for qubit readout, but such thermal detectors have not been demonstrated for this purpose. In this work, we utilize an ultrasensitive bolometer in place of a parametric amplifier to experimentally demonstrate single-shot qubit readout. With a readout duration of $13.9~μ\mathrm{s}$, we achieve a single-shot fidelity of 0.618 which is mainly limited by the energy relaxation time of the qubit, $T_1 = 28~μ\mathrm{s}$. Without the $T_1$ errors, we find the fidelity to be 0.927. In the future, high-fidelity single-shot readout may be achieved by straightforward improvements to the chip design and experimental setup, and perhaps most interestingly by the change of the bolometer absorber material to reduce the readout time to the hundred-nanosecond level and beyond.

DOI
10.48550/arxiv.2303.03668

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Measuring the state of qubits is one of the fundamental operations of a quantum computer. Currently, state-of-the-art high-fidelity single-shot readout of superconducting qubits relies on parametric amplifiers at the millikelvin stage. However, parametric amplifiers are challenging to scale beyond hundreds of qubits owing to practical size and power limitations. Nanobolometers have a multitude of properties that are advantageous for scalability and have recently shown sensitivity and speed promising for qubit readout, but such thermal detectors have not been demonstrated for this purpose. In this work, we utilize an ultrasensitive bolometer in place of a parametric amplifier to experimentally demonstrate single-shot qubit readout. With a readout duration of 13.9 μs13.9~μ\mathrm{s}13.9 μs, we achieve a single-shot fidelity of 0.618 which is mainly limited by the energy relaxation time of the qubit, T1=28 μsT_1 = 28~μ\mathrm{s}T1​=28 μs. Without the T1T_1T1​ errors, we find the fidelity to be 0.927. In the future, high-fidelity single-shot readout may be achieved by straightforward improvements to the chip design and experimental setup, and perhaps most interestingly by the change of the bolometer absorber material to reduce the readout time to the hundred-nanosecond level and beyond.
Measuring the state of a qubit is a key fundamental operation of a quantum computer. High-fidelity single-shot readout of superconducting qubits can be achieved using parametric amplifiers at millikelvin temperatures. However, scaling parametric amplifiers beyond hundreds of qubits is challenging due to practical size and power limitations. Nanobolometers can, in contrast, offer scalability, sensitivity and speed suitable for qubit readout. Here we show that a bolometer can provide single-shot qubit readout with a readout duration of 13.9 μs and a single-shot fidelity of 0.618. The fidelity is mainly limited by the energy relaxation time of the qubit (28 μs), and a fidelity of 0.927 is found after removing errors arising from this relaxation. In the future, higher-fidelity single-shot readout may be achieved through improvements in chip design and experimental setup, as well as a change in the bolometer absorber material to reduce the readout time to the level of hundreds of nanoseconds and below.
Single-shot readout of a quantum state is an essential component in building a large-scale quantum processor, and reducing the readout error is the key challenge. To achieve a high signal-to-noise ratio, quantum-limited low-noise amplifiers such as Josephson parametric amplifiers are typically used. However, a high-fidelity single-shot readout method without a parametric amplifier would be advantageous, as it would reduce system complexity. In this paper, we present a high-fidelity result of frequency-multiplexed, high-power single-shot readout for superconducting qubitswithoutusing a parametric amplifier. We achieved a high readout fidelity of 98.3% with a 400 ns pulse and confirmed that the high-power readout can be used in tomography of an entangled state. We have demonstrated the potential usefulness of this technique in characterizing the final quantum state at the end of quantum operations in a superconducting quantum processor.
Single-shot fidelity is the standard benchmark for superconducting qubit readout, yet it does not directly minimize the wall-clock time needed to certify a quantum state. We treat the dispersive measurement record as a stochastic communication channel and compute the classical Chernoff information governing the multi-shot error exponent, using a trajectory model that incorporates T1 relaxation with full cavity memory. The integration time that maximizes single-shot fidelity and the time that minimizes total certification time do not coincide. For representative transmon parameters and hardware overheads, the throughput-optimal window is longer, cutting certification time by roughly 9-11%, with the gain saturating near 1.13x in the high-readout-power and high-overhead regime. Benchmarking the extracted classical information against the unit-efficiency Gaussian Chernoff limit defines an information-extraction efficiency: dispersive schemes capture ~45% at short integration times, dropping to eta_info(tau_rate) ~ 12% at tau_rate ~ 1.22 us as T1-induced trajectory smearing accumulates. These results connect readout calibration directly to the operational objective of minimizing certification time in high-throughput superconducting processors.
Though superconducting qubits offer the potential for a scalable quantum computing architecture, the high-fidelity readout necessary to execute practical algorithms has thus far remained elusive. Moreover, achievements toward high fidelity have been accompanied by either long measurement times or demolition of the quantum state. In this dissertation, we address these issues with the novel integration of two ultralow-noise, superconducting amplifiers into separate dispersive flux qubit measurements. We first demonstrate a flux qubit inductively coupled to a 1.294-GHz nonlinear oscillator formed by a capacitively shunted DC SQUID. The frequency of the oscillator is modulated by the state of the qubit and is detected via microwave reflectometry. A microstrip SQUID (Superconducting QUantum Interference Device) amplifier (MSA) is used to increase the sensitivity of the measurement over that of a semiconductor amplifier. In the second experiment, we report measurements of a flux qubit coupled via a shared inductance to a quasi-lumped element 5.78-GHz readout resonator formed by the parallel combination of an interdigitated capacitor and a meander line inductor. The system noise is substantially reduced by a near-quantum-limited Josephson parametric amplifier (paramp).We present measurements of increased fidelity and reduced measurement backaction using the MSA at readout excitation levels as low as one hundredth of a photon in the readout resonator, observing a 4.5-fold increase in the readout visibility. Furthermore, at low readout excitation levels below one tenth of a photon in the readout resonator, no reduction in T1 is observed, potentially enabling continuous monitoring of the qubit state. Using the paramp, we demonstrate a continuous, high-fidelity readout with sufficient bandwidth and signal-to-noise ratio to resolve quantum jumps in the flux qubit. This is enabled by a readout which discriminates between the readout pointer state distributions to an error below one part in 1000. This, along with the ability to make many successive readouts in a time T1, permits the use of heralding to ensure initialization to a fiducial state, such as the ground state. This method enables us to eliminate errors due to spurious thermal population, increasing the fidelity to 93.9%. Finally, we use heralding to introduce a simple, fast qubit reset protocol without changing the system parameters to induce Purcell relaxation.
We report single-shot readout of a superconducting flux qubit by using a flux-driven Josephson parametric amplifier (JPA). After optimizing the readout power, gain of the JPA, and timing of the data acquisition, we observe the Rabi oscillations with a contrast of 74%, which is mainly limited by the bandwidth of the JPA and the energy relaxation of the qubit. The observation of quantum jumps between the qubit eigenstates under continuous monitoring indicates the nondestructiveness of the readout scheme.
High-fidelity initialization, manipulation, and measurement of qubits are important in quantum computing. For the Google’s Sycamore processor, the gate fidelity of single- and two-qubit logic operations has improved to>99.6%, whereas single-shot measurement fidelity remains at the level of 97%, which severely limits the application of the superconducting approach to large-scale quantum computing. The current measurement scheme relies on the dispersive interaction between the qubit and the readout resonator, which was proposed back in 2004. However, the measurement fidelity is limited by the trade-off between the state separation and relaxation time of the two-level system. Recently, an exciting phenomenon was observed experimentally, wherein the separation-decay limit could be alleviated by exploiting the cascade decay nature of the higher levels; however, the mechanism and effectiveness of this phenomenon are still unclear. Herein, we present a theoretical tool to extract different types of errors in high-level states encoding dispersive measurement. For the realistic parameters of Google’s Sycamore processor, the use of state |2〉 is sufficient to suppress 92% of the decay readout error on average, where the total readout error is dominated by the background thermal excitation. We also show counter-intuitively that, the assistance of high-level states is effective in the measurement of logic 0, where there is no decay process.