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IEEE International Superconductive Electronics Conference (ISEC)

Reducing surface loss in 3D microwave copper cavities for superconducting transmon qubits

Daniela F. Bogorin, Matthew Ware, Douglas McClure, Stephen Sorokanich, B. L. T. Plourde

Published Jul 1, 2013• 3 citations
Publisher

Abstract

The recent implementation of three-dimensional microwave cavities coupled to superconducting transmon qubits has led to dramatic improvements in qubit coherence times [1]. Besides the superconducting aluminum cavities that have been used in many such measurements, other recent experiments have utilized copper cavities [2] with coherence times now approaching 0.1 ms. We are investigating the effects on the quality factor for three-dimensional copper cavities that have the cavity-wall surfaces electropolished and coated with a superconducting tin layer. The copper base provides a good path for thermalizing the cavity walls and qubit chip, while the surface treatment reduces the microwave loss. We have measured a superconducting transmon qubit in such a cavity and we report our low-temperature coherence results on the same qubit and cavity measured in two different labs.

DOI
10.1109/isec.2013.6604283

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The recent implementation of three-dimensional microwave cavities coupled to superconducting transmon qubits has led to dramatic improvements in qubit coherence times [1]. Besides the superconducting aluminum cavities that have been used in many such measurements, other recent experiments have utilized copper cavities [2] with coherence times now approaching 0.1 ms. We are investigating the effects on the quality factor for three-dimensional copper cavities that have the cavity-wall surfaces electropolished and coated with a superconducting tin layer. The copper base provides a good path for thermalizing the cavity walls and qubit chip, while the surface treatment reduces the microwave loss. We have measured a superconducting transmon qubit in such a cavity and we report our low-temperature coherence results on the same qubit and cavity measured in two different labs.
Significant improvements in superconducting qubit coherence times have been achieved recently with 3-D microwave waveguide cavities coupled to transmon qubits. While many of the measurements in this direction have utilized superconducting aluminum cavities, other recent work has involved qubits coupled to copper cavities with coherence times approaching 0.1 ms. The copper provides a good path for thermalizing the cavity walls and qubit chip, although the substantial cavity loss makes conventional dispersive qubit measurements challenging. We are exploring various approaches for improving the quality factor of 3-D copper cavities, including electropolishing and coating with superconducting layers of tin. We have characterized these cavities on multiple cooldowns and found tin plating to be robust. In addition, we have performed coherence measurements on transmon qubits in these cavities and observed promising performance.
Three-dimensional microwave cavities have recently been combined with superconducting qubits in the circuit quantum electrodynamics architecture. These cavities should have less sensitivity to dielectric and conductor losses at surfaces and interfaces, which currently limit the performance of planar resonators. We expect that significantly (>103) higher quality factors and longer lifetimes should be achievable for 3D structures. Motivated by this principle, we have reached internal quality factors greater than 0.5 × 109 and intrinsic lifetimes of 0.01 s for multiple aluminum superconducting cavity resonators at single photon energies and millikelvin temperatures. These improvements could enable long lived quantum memories with submicrosecond access times when strongly coupled to superconducting qubits.
Three-dimensional microwave cavities have recently been combined with superconducting qubits in the circuit quantum electrodynamics (cQED) architecture. These cavities should have less sensitivity to dielectric and conductor losses at surfaces and interfaces, which currently limit the performance of planar resonators. We expect that significantly (>10^3) higher quality factors and longer lifetimes should be achievable for 3D structures. Motivated by this principle, we have reached internal quality factors greater than 0.5x10^9 and intrinsic lifetimes of 0.01 seconds for multiple aluminum superconducting cavity resonators at single photon energies and millikelvin temperatures. These improvements could enable long lived quantum memories with submicrosecond access times when strongly coupled to superconducting qubits.
Three-dimensional (3D) microwave cavities have been extensively used for coupling and interacting with superconducting quantum bits (qubits), providing a versatile platform for quantum control experiments and for realizing hybrid quantum systems. While having high quality factors (>10 6 ) superconducting cavities do not permit magnetic field control of qubits. In contrast, cavities made of normal metals are transparent to magnetic fields, but experience lower quality factors (∼10 4 ). We have created a hybrid cavity which is primarily composed of aluminium but also contains a small copper insert reaching the internal quality factor of ≃10 5 , an order of magnitude improvement over all previously tested normal metal cavities. In order to demonstrate precise magnetic control, we performed spectroscopy of three superconducting qubits, where individual control of each qubit’s frequency was exerted with small external wire coils. An improvement in quality factor and magnetic field control makes this 3D hybrid cavity an attractive new element for circuit quantum electrodynamics experiments.
Superconducting 3D microwave cavities offer state-of-the-art coherence times and a well controlled environment for superconducting qubits. In order to realize at the same time fast readout and long-lived quantum information storage, one can couple the qubit both to a low-quality readout and a high-quality storage cavity. However, such systems are bulky compared to their less coherent 2D counterparts. A more compact and scalable approach is achieved by making use of the multimode structure of a 3D cavity. In our work, we investigate such a device where a transmon qubit is capacitively coupled to two modes of a single 3D cavity. The external coupling is engineered so that the memory mode has an about 100 times larger quality factor than the readout mode. Using an all-microwave second-order protocol, we realize a lifetime enhancement of the stored state over the qubit lifetime by a factor of 666 with a ZZZ-fidelity of 82%82\%82%. We also find that this enhancement is not limited by fundamental constraints.
Measuring the losses arising from different materials and interfaces is crucial to improving the coherence of superconducting quantum circuits. Although this has been of interest for a long time, current studies can either only provide bounds to those losses, or require several devices for a complete characterization. In this work, we introduce a method to measure the microwave losses of materials and interfaces with a single multi-mode superconducting resonator. We demonstrate a formalism for analyzing the loss sensitivity of multi-mode systems and discuss the design strategies of multi-mode resonators for material loss studies. We present two types of multi-mode superconducting resonators for the study of bulk superconductors: the forky whispering-gallery-mode resonator (FWGMR) and the ellipsoidal cavity. We use these resonators to measure the surface dielectric, conductor, and seam losses of high-purity (5N5) aluminum and aluminum alloy (6061), as well as how they are affected by chemical etching, diamond turning, and thin-film coating. We find that chemical etching and diamond turning reduce both the surface dielectric and conductive losses of high-purity aluminum, but provide no appreciable improvement to the seam. Coating the surfaces of diamond-turned aluminum alloys with e-beam evaporated or sputtered aluminum thin-films significantly reduces all three losses under study. In addition, we study the effect of chemical etching on the surface of high-purity aluminum using transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and find that the chemical etching process creates a thinner and more uniform oxide layer, consistent with the observed improvement in the surface dielectric loss.