Superconducting nanodevices such as qubits, resonators, and photodetectors, have revolutionized our capabilities for probing and controlling quantum phenomena. Nonequilibrium quasiparticles, which are broken Cooper pairs that cause decoherence and energy loss, can limit their performance. The number of these quasiparticles is often tens of orders of magnitude greater than would be present in thermal equilibrium. Background radiation has been shown to excite quasiparticles, but quasiparticles are observed even when the devices are carefully shielded. Here we show that the high-frequency components of 1/f noise can excite quasiparticle pairs and that this mechanism is consistent with previously unexplained experimental results. We also propose new experiments that exploit this quasiparticle excitation mechanism to non-invasively characterize high-frequency charge noise as well as the locations and nature of the defects producing the noise. The proposed experiments would also investigate how this noise changes as the defects that give rise to it evolve towards thermal equilibrium.
Superconducting nanodevices such as qubits, resonators, and photodetectors, have revolutionized our capabilities for probing and controlling quantum phenomena. Nonequilibrium quasiparticles, which are broken Cooper pairs that cause decoherence and energy loss, can limit their performance. The number of these quasiparticles is often tens of orders of magnitude greater than would be present in thermal equilibrium. Background radiation has been shown to excite quasiparticles, but quasiparticles are observed even when the devices are carefully shielded. Here we show that the high-frequency components of 1/f noise can excite quasiparticle pairs and that this mechanism is consistent with previously unexplained experimental results. We also propose new experiments that exploit this quasiparticle excitation mechanism to non-invasively characterize high-frequency charge noise as well as the locations and nature of the defects producing the noise. The proposed experiments would also investigate how this noise changes as the defects that give rise to it evolve towards thermal equilibrium.
The quasiparticle density observed in low-temperature superconducting circuits is several orders of magnitude larger than the value expected at thermal equilibrium. The tunneling of this excess of quasiparticles across Josephson junctions is recognized as one of the main loss and decoherence mechanisms in superconducting qubits. Here we present a unified impedance theory that accounts for quasiparticle energy loss in circuit regions both far from and near to (across) junctions. Our theory leverages the recent experimental demonstration that the excess quasiparticles are in quasiequilibrium [Connolly et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 132, 217001 (2024)] and uses a generalized fluctuation-dissipation theorem to predict the amount of charge and flux noise generated by them. We compute the resulting energy relaxation time T1 in transmon qubits with and without junction asymmetric gap engineering, and show that quasiparticles residing away from junctions can play a dominant role in the former case. They also may provide an upper limit for resonator quality factors if the density of amorphous two-level systems is reduced. In addition, we show that charge noise from quasiparticles leads to flux noise that is logarithmic in frequency, giving rise to a ``nearly white'' contribution that is comparable to the flux noise observed in flux qubits. This contrasts with amorphous two-level systems, whose associated flux noise is shown to be super-Ohmic. We discuss how this quasiparticle flux noise can limit ${T}_{2}^{\ensuremath{\ast}}$ coherence times in flux-tunable qubits. The final conclusion is that asymmetric gap engineering can greatly reduce noise and increase coherence times in superconducting qubits.
Nonequilibrium quasiparticle excitations degrade the performance of a variety of superconducting circuits. Understanding the energy distribution of these quasiparticles will yield insight into their generation mechanisms, the limitations they impose on superconducting devices, and how to efficiently mitigate quasiparticle-induced qubit decoherence. To probe this energy distribution, we systematically correlate qubit relaxation and excitation with charge-parity switches in an offset-charge-sensitive transmon qubit, and find that quasiparticle-induced excitation events are the dominant mechanism behind the residual excited-state population in our samples. By itself, the observed quasiparticle distribution would limit T_{1} to ≈200 μs, which indicates that quasiparticle loss in our devices is on equal footing with all other loss mechanisms. Furthermore, the measured rate of quasiparticle-induced excitation events is greater than that of relaxation events, which signifies that the quasiparticles are more energetic than would be predicted from a thermal distribution describing their apparent density.
The ideal superconductor provides a pristine environment for the delicate states of a quantum computer: because there is an energy gap to excitations, there are no spurious modes with which the qubits can interact, causing irreversible decay of the quantum state. As a practical matter, however, there exists a high density of excitations out of the superconducting ground state even at ultralow temperature; these are known as quasiparticles. Observed quasiparticle densities are of order 1 μm^{-3}, tens of orders of magnitude greater than the equilibrium density expected from theory. Nonequilibrium quasiparticles extract energy from the qubit mode and can induce dephasing. Here we show that a dominant mechanism for quasiparticle poisoning is direct absorption of high-energy photons at the qubit junction. We use a Josephson junction-based photon source to controllably dose qubit circuits with millimeter-wave radiation, and we use an interferometric quantum gate sequence to reconstruct the charge parity of the qubit. We find that the structure of the qubit itself acts as a resonant antenna for millimeter-wave radiation, providing an efficient path for photons to generate quasiparticles. A deep understanding of this physics will pave the way to realization of next-generation superconducting qubits that are robust against quasiparticle poisoning.
Superconducting materials are useful for a wide range of applications, ranging from particle detectors to quantum computing. The presence of excitations (quasiparticles) in the superconductor can be a resource in some devices and a disturbance in others - in kinetic inductance detectors, the generation of quasiparticles by an incoming photon can be read out and used to calculate the energy of the photon, while the tunnelling of quasiparticles is a cause of decoherence in quantum computing. While early research mostly focused on superconductors close to the critical temperature, temperatures that are far below the critical temperatures are often used for current applications. At these low temperatures, the energy exchange between quasiparticles and phonons becomes slow, and even small disturbances may drive the energy distribution of the quasiparticles out of thermal equilibrium. In fact, experiments usually show a residual number of quasiparticles even at milikelvin temperatures, for which the thermal density of quasiparticles would be negligible. This thesis consists of two parts: In the first part, I model the energy distribution of quasiparticles in superconducting resonators: Quasiparticles absorb energy by absorbing photons and release it as phonons, which drives the superconductor out of thermal equilibrium. I solve a set of rate equations, both numerical and analytical, to calculate the energy distribution of the quasiparticles. For parameters typically used in kinetic inductance detectors made of aluminum, the microwave signal used to read out the resonator dominates the energy distribution of the quasiparticles, while their density is determined by other processes. At not too low temperatures, quasiparticles are mainly produced by thermal phonons, and my calculations reproduce recently measured quality factors of resonators at temperatures above 250 mK without free parameters. I show that even a very small number of photons of higher energy, which I ascribe to noise from the microwave generator, would dominate the quasiparticle density at lower temperatures. Under this assumption, my calculations also reproduce the quality factors at lower temperatures. In the second part of this thesis, I investigate the effects of spatial fluctuations of the superconducting energy gap on the dynamics of quasiparticles. Recently, it has been proposed that such fluctuations may lead to the localization of quasiparticles in states below the energy gap, which could cause a finite quasiparticle density even at very low temperatures. Using the Keldysh-Usadel formalism, I derive rates for the different processes (recombination/(de-) localization/generation) of quasiparticles in such systems. Using these rate equations I derive new upper limits for the quasiparticle density that could result from these localized states. These upper limits show that localization caused by weak magnetic impurities in typical aluminum systems does not lead to a relevant quasiparticle density. This contradicts previous theories, which only consider the recombination between two localized quasiparticles without examining their dynamics in detail.
Superconducting qubits probe environmental defects such as nonequilibrium quasiparticles, an important source of decoherence. We show that "hot" nonequilibrium quasiparticles, with energies above the superconducting gap, affect qubits differently from quasiparticles at the gap, implying qubits can probe the dynamic quasiparticle energy distribution. For hot quasiparticles, we predict a non-negligible increase in the qubit excited state probability Pe. By injecting hot quasiparticles into a qubit, we experimentally measure an increase of Pe in semiquantitative agreement with the model and rule out the typically assumed thermal distribution.
Superconducting qubits are at the forefront of efforts to develop scalable quantum computers due to their potential to perform complex computations beyond the capabilities of classical systems. However, maintaining the quantum coherence of these qubits remains a significant challenge, primarily due to various noise sources such as flux noise, dielectric loss, and quasiparticle poisoning. This dissertation presents a detailed theoretical investigation into two noise mechanisms affecting superconducting qubits: flux noise from spin impurities and charge/flux noise from non-equilibrium superconducting quasiparticle distributions. The first part of the research focuses on developing a general theoretical framework to calculate flux noise arising from spin impurities. This framework accounts for spin diffusion and spin-lattice relaxation, incorporating a discrete diffusion model to handle confinement effects and inhomogeneities. Analytical and numerical results show that the spin relaxation model aligns with experimental observations in aluminum devices, while the spin diffusion model better matches experiments in niobium devices. The second part of the thesis proposes a theory addressing charge and flux noise due to non-equilibrium superconducting quasiparticle distributions within superconducting wires. This theory highlights the significant impact of ohmic loss generated by these quasiparticles, revealing their contribution to charge noise at intermediate frequencies and a nearly white flux noise background. Comparative analysis with experimental data provides some validation for the theoretical models and gives insights into the temperature-dependent behavior of flux noise and the distinctive noise characteristics in aluminum and niobium devices. The findings highlight the necessity of addressing wire-resident quasiparticles