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arXiv:2606.16055

Readout-Induced Leakage in Superconducting Circuits with Nonlinear Couplings

Sumeru Hazra, Wei Dai, Daniel K. Weiss, Pranav D. Parakh, Luigi Frunzio, Michel H. Devoret

quant-phSubmitted Jun 14, 2026• Announced Jun 16, 2026• 0 citations• Revised Jul 8, 2026 (v2)
v1 · Jun 14, 2026v2 · Jul 8, 2026
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Abstract

In superconducting circuits, drive-induced unwanted transitions limit the readout power, thereby constraining readout speed and fidelity. When such transitions excite the qubit into leakage states, they produce correlated errors that are particularly harmful for quantum error correction. Native nonlinear qubit-readout resonator coupling is a promising alternative to conventional linear hybridization because it provides intrinsic Purcell protection and stricter selection rules for multiphoton processes. In realistic devices, however, we show that such a coupling alone neither eliminates nor necessarily suppresses drive-induced transitions. Instead, if not appropriately engineered, these couplings often worsen the situation by introducing additional parasitic processes. Moreover, the rates of these unwanted transitions remain sensitive to the choice of readout frequency, regardless of the coupling mechanism. We demonstrate that readout-induced leakage can thus vary by orders of magnitude even when readout frequencies differ by less than ~7%. Our results establish that the benefits of native nonlinear couplings are realized only through informed device design, including the spectral placement of relevant auxiliary modes and elimination of parasitic ones.

Comments
23 pages, 11 figures

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In superconducting circuits, drive-induced unwanted transitions limit the readout power, thereby constraining readout speed and fidelity. When such transitions excite the qubit into leakage states, they produce correlated errors that are particularly harmful for quantum error correction. Native nonlinear qubit-readout resonator coupling is a promising alternative to conventional linear hybridization because it provides intrinsic Purcell protection and stricter selection rules for multiphoton processes. In realistic devices, however, we show that such a coupling alone neither eliminates nor necessarily suppresses drive-induced transitions. Instead, if not appropriately engineered, these couplings often worsen the situation by introducing additional parasitic processes. Moreover, the rates of these unwanted transitions remain sensitive to the choice of readout frequency, regardless of the coupling mechanism. We demonstrate that readout-induced leakage can thus vary by orders of magnitude even when readout frequencies differ by less than ~7%. Our results establish that the benefits of native nonlinear couplings are realized only through informed device design, including the spectral placement of relevant auxiliary modes and elimination of parasitic ones.
Microwave drives are essential for implementing control and readout operations in superconducting quantum circuits. However, increasing the drive strength eventually leads to unwanted state transitions which limit the speed and fidelity of such operations. In this work, we systematically investigate such transitions in a fixed-frequency qubit subjected to microwave drives spanning a 9-GHz frequency range. We identify the physical origins of these transitions and classify them into three categories: (1) resonant energy exchange with parasitic two-level systems (TLSs), activated by drive-induced ac-Stark shifts, (2) multiphoton transitions to noncomputational states, intrinsic to the circuit Hamiltonian, and (3) inelastic scattering processes in which the drive causes a state transition in the superconducting circuit, while transferring excess energy to a spurious electromagnetic mode or TLS material defect. We show that the Floquet steady-state simulation, complemented by an electromagnetic simulation of the physical device, accurately predicts the observed transitions that do not involve TLS. Our results provide a comprehensive classification of these transitions and offer mitigation strategies through informed choices of drive frequency as well as improved circuit design.
Drive-induced unwanted state transitions (DUST) are limiting both for microwave readout and parametric operations of superconducting qubits. Among them, measurement-induced state transitions (MIST) are due to intrinsic resonances described by the readout Hamiltonian. They were previously studied with a qubit linearly coupled to its readout mode, which constitutes the usual readout Hamiltonian. Since MIST can appear even at moderate powers, they limit the readout signal-to-noise ratio and the quantum non-demolition readout fidelity. In this work, we study the high-power readout regime in a different transmon readout scheme, implementing a nonlinear coupling called the cos  φ -coupling. This coupling stems from a transmon molecule circuit and has symmetry properties that suppress nonparity-conserving MIST. We succeed in performing multistate single-shot readout up to the fifth excited state of the transmon, which enables us to identify leakage pathways from the computational subspace. The measurements indicate that the system is free of MIST up to high powers, with more than 300 photons in the readout mode. The MIST can be controllably turned on by breaking the parity symmetry of the coupling using flux-tuning. These experimental results are corroborated by branch analysis and simulations of the classical chaotic dynamics, showing that the cos  φ -coupling is very robust to readout photons compared to the usual transverse coupling.
Readout of superconducting qubits faces a trade-off between measurement speed and unwanted backaction on the qubit caused by the readout drive, such as T_{1} degradation and leakage out of the computational subspace. The readout is typically benchmarked by integrating the readout signal and choosing a binary threshold to extract the "readout fidelity." We show that readout fidelity may significantly overlook readout-induced leakage errors. Such errors are detrimental for applications that rely on continuously repeated measurements, e.g., quantum error correction. We introduce a method to measure the readout-induced leakage rate by repeatedly executing a composite operation-a readout preceded by a randomized qubit flip. We apply this technique to characterize the readout of a superconducting qubit, optimized for fidelity across four different readout durations. Our technique highlights the importance of an independent leakage characterization by showing that the leakage rates vary from 0.12% to 7.76% across these readouts even though the fidelity exceeds 99.5% in all four cases.
Despite the significant progress in superconducting quantum computation over the past years, quantum state measurement still lags nearly an order of magnitude behind quantum gate operations in speed and fidelity. The main challenge is that the strong coupling and readout signal used to probe the quantum state may also introduce additional channels which may cause qubit state transitions. Here, we design a novel architecture to implement the long-sought longitudinal interaction scheme between qubits and resonators. This architecture not only provides genuine longitudinal interaction by eliminating residual transversal couplings, but also introduces proper nonlinearity to the resonator that can further minimize decay error and measurement-induced excitation error. Combined with the multilevel readout protocol, we achieved a measurement fidelity of 99.8% in 202 ns without requiring any first-stage amplification. This highlights its potential as a highly promising architecture for superconducting qubit measurement.
Dispersive readout, the standard method for measuring superconducting qubits, is limited by multiphoton qubit-resonator processes arising even at moderate drive powers. These processes degrade performance, causing dispersive readout to lag behind single- and two-qubit gates in both speed and fidelity. In this Letter, we propose a novel readout method, termed junction readout. Junction readout leverages the nonperturbative cross-Kerr interaction resulting from coupling a qubit and a resonator via a Josephson junction. Furthermore, by adding a capacitive coupling in parallel to the junction, Purcell decay induced by the exchange coupling can be suppressed. We also show that junction readout is more robust against deleterious multiphoton processes, and offers greater flexibility for resonator frequency allocation. Crucially, junction readout achieves superior performance compared to dispersive readout while maintaining similar hardware overhead. Numerical simulations show that junction readout can achieve fidelity exceeding 99.99% in under 30 ns of integration time, making it a promising alternative for superconducting qubit readout with current hardware.
Repeated quantum non-demolition measurement is a cornerstone of quantum error correction protocols. In superconducting qubits, the speed of dispersive state readout can be enhanced by increasing the power of the readout tone. However, such an increase has been found to result in additional qubit state transitions that violate the desired quantum non-demolition character of the measurement. Recently, the readout of a transmon superconducting qubit was improved by using a tone with frequency much larger than the qubit frequency. Here, we experimentally identify the mechanisms of readout-induced transitions in this regime. In the dominant mechanism, the energy of an incoming readout photon is partially absorbed by the transmon and partially returned to the transmission line as a photon with lower frequency. Other mechanisms involve the excitation of unwanted package modes, decay via material defects, and, at higher qubit frequencies, the activation of undesired resonances in the transmon spectrum. Our work provides a comprehensive characterization of superconducting qubit state transitions caused by a strong drive.