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arXiv:2607.13870

Phonon down-conversion by normal metals for superconducting devices

Guglielmo La Magna, Gianluigi Catelani

cond-mat.mes-hallcond-mat.supr-conquant-phSubmitted Jul 15, 2026• Announced Jul 16, 2026• 0 citations• Revised Oct 28, 2026 (v2)
v1 · Jul 15, 2026v2 · Oct 28, 2026
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Abstract

Thanks to low dissipation, superconducting devices are promising for a number of applications, such as detectors and implementations of quantum computation. However, their working can be adversely impacted by quasiparticles, which is why so-called quasiparticle poisoning mechanisms and their mitigation are under intense investigation. Here we focus on one poisoning mechanism, namely pair-breaking phonons, and its mitigation through down-conversion by a normal-metal film - the process in which scattering of high-energy phonons by electrons lowers the energy of the former below the pair-breaking threshold. To study the down-conversion, we introduce a model based on kinetic equations, which we solve both analytically (approximately) and numerically in the steady state. We use the solution to the estimate a properly-defined down-conversion efficiency which depends on material parameters (such as the strength of electron-phonon interaction and the phonon transmission coefficient at interfaces) and film and substrate thicknesses. Interestingly, we find that the efficiency is nearly optimal above a minimum metal thickness, typically between 50 and 500 nm depending on the metal-substrate combination.

Comments
20 pages, 8 figures

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Thanks to low dissipation, superconducting devices are promising for a number of applications, such as detectors and implementations of quantum computation. However, their working can be adversely impacted by quasiparticles, which is why so-called quasiparticle poisoning mechanisms and their mitigation are under intense investigation. Here we focus on one poisoning mechanism, namely pair-breaking phonons, and its mitigation through down-conversion by a normal-metal film - the process in which scattering of high-energy phonons by electrons lowers the energy of the former below the pair-breaking threshold. To study the down-conversion, we introduce a model based on kinetic equations, which we solve both analytically (approximately) and numerically in the steady state. We use the solution to the estimate a properly-defined down-conversion efficiency which depends on material parameters (such as the strength of electron-phonon interaction and the phonon transmission coefficient at interfaces) and film and substrate thicknesses. Interestingly, we find that the efficiency is nearly optimal above a minimum metal thickness, typically between 50 and 500 nm depending on the metal-substrate combination.
Quantum error correction can preserve quantum information in the presence of local errors, but correlated errors are fatal. For superconducting qubits, high-energy particle impacts from background radioactivity produce energetic phonons that travel throughout the substrate and create excitations above the superconducting ground state, known as quasiparticles, which can poison all qubits on the chip. We use normal metal reservoirs on the chip back side to downconvert phonons to low energies where they can no longer poison qubits. We introduce a pump-probe scheme involving controlled injection of pair-breaking phonons into the qubit chips. We examine quasiparticle poisoning on chips with and without back-side metallization and demonstrate a reduction in the flux of pair-breaking phonons by over a factor of 20. We use a Ramsey interferometer scheme to simultaneously monitor quasiparticle parity on three qubits for each chip and observe a two-order of magnitude reduction in correlated poisoning due to background radiation.
When a high-energy particle, such as a γ ray or muon, impacts the substrate of a superconducting qubit chip, large numbers of electron-hole pairs and phonons are created. The ensuing dynamics of the electrons and holes changes the local offset-charge environment for qubits near the impact site. The phonons that are produced have energy above the superconducting gap in the films that compose the qubits, leading to quasiparticle excitations above the superconducting ground state when the phonons impinge on the qubit electrodes. An elevated density of quasiparticles degrades qubit coherence, leading to errors in qubit arrays. Because these pair-breaking phonons spread throughout much of the chip, the errors can be correlated across a large portion of the array, posing a significant challenge for quantum error correction. In order to study the dynamics of γ -ray impacts on superconducting qubit arrays, we use a γ -ray source outside the dilution refrigerator to controllably irradiate our devices. By using charge-sensitive transmon qubits, we can measure both the offset-charge shifts and quasiparticle poisoning due to the γ irradiation at different doses. We study correlations between offset-charge shifts and quasiparticle poisoning for different qubits in the array and compare these with numerical modeling of charge and phonon dynamics following a γ -ray impact. We thus characterize the poisoning footprint of these impacts and quantify the performance of structures for mitigating phonon-mediated quasiparticle poisoning.
Thin-film superconductors with thickness ∼30–500 nm are used as non-equilibrium quantum detectors for photons, phonons or more exotic particles. One of the most basic questions in determining their limiting sensitivity is the efficiency with which the quanta of interest couple to the detected quasiparticles. As low temperature superconducting resonators, thin films are attractive candidates for producing quantum-sensitive arrayable sensors and the readout uses an additional microwave probe. We have calculated the quasiparticle generation efficiency η s for low energy photons in a representative, clean thin-film superconductor (Al) operating well below its superconducting transition temperature as a function of film thickness, within the framework of the coupled kinetic equations described by Chang and Scalapino (1978 J. Low Temp. Phys. 31 1–32). We have also included the effect of a lower frequency probe. We show that phonon loss from the thin film reduces η s by as much as 40% compared to earlier models that considered relatively thick films or infinite volumes. We also show that the presence of the probe and signal enhances the generation efficiency slightly. We conclude that the ultimate limiting noise equivalent power of this class of detector is determined by the thin-film geometry.
Background radiation can deposit large amounts of energy in the substrate of superconducting qubit arrays. Such events create bursts of energetic phonons that cause transient degradations of coherence, leading to errors. Correlated errors across multiple qubits are problematic for quantum error correction. The authors develop here a numerical model to describe the results of controlled phonon injection experiments. A dense array of qubits is modeled to explore the effectiveness of down-converting metal films for mitigating the effects of gamma ray impacts.
Quantum error correction will be an essential ingredient in realizing fault-tolerant quantum computing. However, most correction schemes rely on the assumption that errors are sufficiently uncorrelated in space and time. In superconducting qubits, this assumption is drastically violated in the presence of ionizing radiation, which creates bursts of high-energy phonons in the substrate. These phonons can break Cooper pairs in the superconductor and, thus, create quasiparticles over large areas, consequently reducing qubit coherence across the quantum device in a correlated fashion. A potential mitigation technique is to place large volumes of normal or superconducting metal on the device, capable of reducing the phonon energy to below the superconducting gap of the qubits. To investigate the effectiveness of this method, we fabricate a quantum device with four nominally identical nanowire-based transmon qubits. On the device, half of the niobium-titanium-nitride ground plane is replaced with aluminum (Al\mathrm{Al}Al), which has a significantly lower superconducting gap. We deterministically inject high-energy phonons into the substrate by voltage biasing a galvanically isolated Josephson junction. In the presence of the small-gap material, we find a factor of 2--5 less degradation in the injection-dependent qubit lifetimes and observe that the undesired excited qubit state population is mitigated by a similar factor. We furthermore turn the Al\mathrm{Al}Al normal with a magnetic field, finding no change in the phonon protection. This suggests that the efficacy of the protection in our device is not limited by the size of the superconducting gap in the Al\mathrm{Al}Al ground plane. Our results provide a promising foundation for protecting superconducting-qubit processors against correlated errors from ionizing radiation.
Nonequilibrium quasiparticles represent a significant source of decoherence in superconducting quantum circuits. Here we investigate the mechanism of quasiparticle poisoning in devices subjected to local quasiparticle injection. We find that quasiparticle poisoning is dominated by the propagation of pair-breaking phonons across the chip. We characterize the energy dependence of the time scale for quasiparticle poisoning. Finally, we observe that incorporation of extensive normal metal quasiparticle traps leads to a more than order-of-magnitude reduction in quasiparticle loss for a given injected quasiparticle power.