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arXiv:2504.10298 · Quantum Science and Technology

Cross-talk in superconducting qubit lattices with tunable couplers—comparing transmon and fluxonium architectures

Florian Lange, Lukas Heunisch, Holger Fehske, David Peter Divincenzo, Michael J. Hartmann

Published Nov 24, 2025• 6 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

Abstract Cross-talk between qubits is one of the main challenges for scaling superconducting quantum processors. Here, we use the density-matrix renormalization group to numerically analyze lattices of superconducting qubits from a perspective of many-body localization. Specifically, we compare different architectures that include tunable couplers designed to decouple qubits in the idle state, and calculate the residual ZZ interactions as well as the inverse participation ratio in the computational basis states. For transmon qubits outside of the straddling regime, the results confirm that tunable C-shunt flux couplers are significantly more efficient in mitigating the ZZ interactions than tunable transmons. A recently proposed fluxonium architecture with tunable transmon couplers is demonstrated to also maintain its strong suppression of the ZZ interactions in larger systems, while having a higher inverse participation ratio in the computational basis states than lattices of transmon qubits. Our results thus suggest that fluxonium architectures may feature lower cross talk than transmon lattices when designed to achieve similar gate speeds and fidelities.

DOI
10.1088/2058-9565/ae2358

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arXiv:2306.17007•Physical Review Applied•Dec 20, 2023•29 citations
Abstract Cross-talk between qubits is one of the main challenges for scaling superconducting quantum processors. Here, we use the density-matrix renormalization group to numerically analyze lattices of superconducting qubits from a perspective of many-body localization. Specifically, we compare different architectures that include tunable couplers designed to decouple qubits in the idle state, and calculate the residual ZZ interactions as well as the inverse participation ratio in the computational basis states. For transmon qubits outside of the straddling regime, the results confirm that tunable C-shunt flux couplers are significantly more efficient in mitigating the ZZ interactions than tunable transmons. A recently proposed fluxonium architecture with tunable transmon couplers is demonstrated to also maintain its strong suppression of the ZZ interactions in larger systems, while having a higher inverse participation ratio in the computational basis states than lattices of transmon qubits. Our results thus suggest that fluxonium architectures may feature lower cross talk than transmon lattices when designed to achieve similar gate speeds and fidelities.
In recent years, several architectures have been proposed for implementing two-qubit operations on fluxonium superconducting qubits. A particularly promising approach, which was demonstrated experimentally by Refs. [1,2], employs a transmon superconducting qubit as a tunable coupler between the fluxonium qubits. These experiments have shown that the transmon coupler enables fast, high-fidelity two-qubit operations while suppressing unwanted ZZ crosstalk between the fluxonium qubits. In this work, we numerically study the scalability of this architecture. We find that, when trivially scaling this architecture, crosstalk from spectator qubits limits the gate fidelity to below 90%. We show that these spectator errors can be reduced to below 10−410^{-4}10−4 by reducing the coupling strength and by dynamically tuning transmons that are not used for a two-qubit operation to an off position. We further investigate the resilience of the operation to direct capacitive coupling between the transmon couplers and to microwave crosstalk.
In recent years, several architectures have been proposed for implementing two-qubit operations on fluxonium superconducting qubits. A particularly promising approach, which was demonstrated experimentally by Refs. [L. Ding , S. Singh ], employs a transmon superconducting qubit as a tunable coupler between the fluxonium qubits. These experiments have shown that the transmon coupler enables fast, high-fidelity two-qubit operations while suppressing unwanted Z Z crosstalk between the fluxonium qubits. In this work, we numerically study the scalability of this architecture. We find that, when trivially scaling this architecture, crosstalk from spectator qubits limits the gate fidelity to below 90%. We show that these spectator errors can be reduced to below 10 − 4 by reducing the coupling strength and by dynamically tuning transmons that are not used for a two-qubit operation to an off position. We further investigate the resilience of the operation to direct capacitive coupling between the transmon couplers and to microwave crosstalk.
Superconducting quantum processors have largely converged on transmon-based architectures, while alternative qubit modalities with intrinsic error protection have lacked a demonstrated path to scalable system integration. In particular, although tunable-coupler-mediated interactions have been validated for small fluxonium systems, it remains unclear whether such designs can be scaled to a multi-qubit lattice. Here, we establish a scalable fluxonium processor architecture based on a modular qubit-coupler unit cell engineered to suppress residual interactions and spectator errors in a many-qubit lattice. The system enables parallel single-qubit gate fidelities approaching 99.99% and two-qubit CZ gate fidelities around 99%. With an optimized gate duration of 32 ns, the best CZ gate fidelity reaches 99.9%. We further validate this architecture in a 22-qubit processor based on the same configuration, where parallel operations enable the deterministic generation of Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger states involving up to 10 qubits. Together, these results demonstrate that the fluxonium-tunable-coupler unit cell composes without emergent interaction pathologies and establish fluxonium as a scalable superconducting qubit platform.
The fluxonium qubit has emerged as a promising candidate for superconducting quantum computing due to its long coherence times and high-fidelity gates. Nonetheless, further scaling up and improving performance remain critical challenges for establishing fluxoniums as a viable alternative to transmons. A key obstacle lies in developing scalable coupling architectures. In this work, we introduce a scalable fluxonium architecture that enables decoupling of qubit states while maintaining tunable couplings between non-computational states. Beyond the well-studied ZZ crosstalk, we identify that always-on interactions involving non-computational levels can significantly degrade the fidelities of initialization, control, and readout in large systems, thereby impeding scalability. Based on two possible physical realizations of the architecture, we demonstrate that the issue can be mitigated by implementing tunable couplings for fluxonium plasmon transitions, meanwhile enabling fast, high-fidelity gates with passive ZZ suppression. This comparative analysis enables us to establish general principles for realizing the architecture while understanding and addressing implementation-specific challenges.
Eliminating residual ZZ interactions in a two-qubit system is essential for reducing coherent errors during quantum operations. In a superconducting circuit platform, coupling two transmon qubits via a transmon coupler has been shown to effectively suppress residual ZZ interactions. However, in such systems, perfect cancellation usually requires the qubit-qubit detuning to be smaller than the individual qubit anharmonicities, which exacerbates frequency crowding and microwave crosstalk. To address this limitation, we introduce TFT (Transmon-Fluxonium-Transmon) architecture, wherein two transmon qubits are coupled via a fluxonium qubit. The coupling mediated by the fluxonium eliminates residual ZZ interactions even for transmons detuned larger than their anharmonicities. We experimentally identified zero-ZZ interaction points at qubit-qubit detunings of 409 MHz and 616 MHz from two distinct TFT devices. We then implemented an adiabatic, coupler-flux-biased controlled-Z gate on both devices, achieving CZ gate fidelities of 99.64(6)% and 99.68(8)%.
Enhancing the capabilities of superconducting quantum hardware, requires higher gate fidelities and lower crosstalk, particularly in larger-scale devices, in which qubits are coupled to multiple neighbors. Progress towards both of these objectives would highly benefit from the ability to fully control all interactions between pairs of qubits. Here we propose an alternative coupler model that allows dispersively detuned transmon qubits to be fully decoupled from each other, i.e., ZZZZZZ crosstalk is completely suppressed while maintaining a maximal localization of the qubits' computational basis states. We further reason that, for a dispersively detuned transmon system, this can only be the case if the anharmonicity of the coupler is positive at the idling point. A simulation of a 40-ns\mathrm{ns}ns CZ gate for a lumped-element model suggests that achievable process infidelity can be pushed below the limit imposed by state-of-the-art coherence times of transmon qubits. On the other hand, idle gates between qubits are no longer limited by parasitic interactions. We show that our scheme can be applied to large integrated qubit grids, where it allows a pair of qubits to be fully isolated, that undergoes a gate operation, from the rest of the chip while simultaneously pushing the fidelity of gates to the limit set by the coherence time of the individual qubits.