We present the experimental implementation of two-qubit quantum algorithms in a superconducting circuit. Our processor incorporates local and fast flux biasing of two transmon qubits within a circuit QED architecture. An off-resonant cavity bus shields the qubits from the external environment and couples them to each other via virtual photon exchange. Meanwhile, integrated short-circuited coplanar waveguides proximal to each qubit allow nanosecond control of their frequencies. We demonstrate flux-controlled single-qubit z rotations and a qubit-qubit conditional phase (c-phase) interaction with a coupling strength tunable by two orders of magnitude. These operations are combined with frequency-multiplexed x and y rotations to form a set of gates universal for quantum computation. Dispersive frequency shifts of the cavity bus allow tomography of the two-qubit state, and accurate determination of state purity, fidelity and entanglement. The processor is first programmed to generate and detect entanglement on demand using sequences of five single-qubit operations and one c-phase. The four Bell states are generated with fidelities better than 90%, corresponding to a concurrence of 0.85 or an entanglement of formation of 0.8. Next, the Grover search algorithm is implemented by concatenating eight single-qubit and two c-phases operations. The fidelity of the algorithm output states to the theoretical ideal is ~ 80%, consistent with the observed T1 times ~ 1 us and the total duration ~ 130 ns of the algorithm sequence. We also program and execute the Deutsch-Jozsa algorithm, finding similar performance. Prospects for scaling the processor beyond two qubits will be discussed. Research supported by NSF, NSA and ARO.
We present the experimental implementation of two-qubit quantum algorithms in a superconducting circuit. Our processor incorporates local and fast flux biasing of two transmon qubits within a circuit QED architecture. An off-resonant cavity bus shields the qubits from the external environment and couples them to each other via virtual photon exchange. Meanwhile, integrated short-circuited coplanar waveguides proximal to each qubit allow nanosecond control of their frequencies. We demonstrate flux-controlled single-qubit z rotations and a qubit-qubit conditional phase (c-phase) interaction with a coupling strength tunable by two orders of magnitude. These operations are combined with frequency-multiplexed x and y rotations to form a set of gates universal for quantum computation. Dispersive frequency shifts of the cavity bus allow tomography of the two-qubit state, and accurate determination of state purity, fidelity and entanglement. The processor is first programmed to generate and detect entanglement on demand using sequences of five single-qubit operations and one c-phase. The four Bell states are generated with fidelities better than 90%, corresponding to a concurrence of 0.85 or an entanglement of formation of 0.8. Next, the Grover search algorithm is implemented by concatenating eight single-qubit and two c-phases operations. The fidelity of the algorithm output states to the theoretical ideal is ~ 80%, consistent with the observed T1 times ~ 1 us and the total duration ~ 130 ns of the algorithm sequence. We also program and execute the Deutsch-Jozsa algorithm, finding similar performance. Prospects for scaling the processor beyond two qubits will be discussed. Research supported by NSF, NSA and ARO.
A quantum computer will use the properties of quantum physics to solve certain computational problems much faster than otherwise possible. One promising potential implementation is to use superconducting quantum bits in the circuit quantum electrodynamics (cQED) architecture. There, the low energy states of a nonlinear electronic oscillator are isolated and addressed as a qubit. These qubits are capacitively coupled to the modes of a microwave-frequency transmission line resonator which serves as a quantum communication bus. Microwave electrical pulses are applied to the resonator to manipulate or measure the qubit state. State control is calibrated using diagnostic sequences that expose systematic errors. Hybridization of the resonator with the qubit gives it a nonlinear response when driven strongly, useful for amplifying the measurement signal to enhance accuracy. Qubits coupled to the same bus may coherently interact with one another via the exchange of virtual photons. A two-qubit conditional phase gate mediated by this interaction can deterministically entangle its targets, and is used to generate two-qubit Bell states and three-qubit GHZ states. These three-qubit states are of particular interest because they redundantly encode quantum information. They are the basis of the quantum repetition code prototypical of more sophisticated schemes required for quantum computation. Using a three-qubit Toffoli gate, this code is demonstrated to autonomously correct either bit- or phase-flip errors. Despite observing the expected behavior, the overall fidelity is low because of decoherence. A superior implementation of cQED replaces the transmission-line resonator with a three-dimensional box mode, increasing lifetimes by an order of magnitude. In-situ qubit frequency control is enabled with control lines, which are used to fully characterize and control the system Hamiltonian.
A quantum algorithm consists of a sequence of operations and measurements applied to a quantum processor. To date, the instruction set which defines this sequence has been provided by a classical computer and passed via control hardware to the quantum processor. Here, we demonstrate the first experimental realization of a quantum instruction set, in which a fixed sequence of classically-defined gates perform an operation that is fully determined only by a quantum input to the fixed sequence. Specifically, we implement the density matrix exponentiation algorithm, which consumes N copies of the instruction state ρ to approximate the operation e−iρθ (θ an arbitrary angle). Our implementation relies on a 99.7% fidelity controlled-phase gate between two superconducting transmon qubits. We achieve an average algorithmic fidelity ≈0.9, independent of the setting of ρ, to circuit depth nearly 90. This new paradigm for quantum instructions has applications to resource-efficient protocols for validating entanglement spectra, principal component analysis of large quantum states, and universal quantum emulation.
Superconducting circuit quantum electrodynamics is the main architecture for implementation of quantum processors. This work presents a proposal to miniaturize quantum memory devices by combining the quantum memory qubits encoded directly in the first two Fock states ${|0\ensuremath{\rangle},|1\ensuremath{\rangle}}$ and the bus channel in the same specially designed multimode cavity. One key feature of the resonant modes used for quantum memory is that the microwave current is localized, which facilitates the storage and retrieval of information in superconducting qubits while preventing crosstalk from other resonant modes. Frequency design and distinct coupling strengths in this kind of device are analyzed with electromagnetic simulations and numerical calculations. The quantum memory properties, e.g., storage speed, fidelity, and stability, are examined in four cases: (1) memory operation of single-qubit state, (2) disturbing effects, (3) coupling operation, and (4) entangled states storage. Decoherence time of the quantum processor can be extended to more than one order of magnitude longer than that without the memory. By integrating transmons with optimally designed coplanar waveguide multimode quantum memories, the present study could provide an optimistic perspective for the development of large-scale superconducting quantum processors.
Superconducting qubits are fabricated "loss-free" electrical circuits on a chip with size features of tens of nanometers. If cooled to cryogenic temperatures below -273 °C they behave as quantum elements, similar to atoms and molecules. Such a qubit can be manipulated by fast-oscillating magnetic fields and its resulting quantum state can be measured using a proper magnetic detector. These qubits could be the basic elements for a quantum processor. To that order, multiple qubits have to controllably interact, and to that purpose very high quality resonators are fabricated on the same chip. Effectively the interaction results from the phase-coherent exchange of a single photon between qubit and resonator. In this way it is highly analogous to the so-called cavity QED in atomic physics where single atoms couple to a single trapped photon, all inside a cavity resonator. In this thesis, a superconducting flux qubit has been coupled to an LC resonator and coherent exchange of a single photon between qubit and resonator has been achieved. A striking option in these superconducting circuits, not attainable in "common" atomic cavity-QED, is that the interaction between qubit and photon can be made very large, up to the limit that one no longer can talk about the qubit and resonator as such. This limit requires a fully different description and it leads to novel effects, e.g. in the energy spectrum of the qubit-resonator composite. The Bloch-Siegert spectral shift is experimentally demonstrated in this thesis. As a small but critical technical aside a new type of control line filter has been developed, which allows strong suppression of excess electrical noise that forms a threat for qubit coherence. Having two modes of operation, it shorts all low-frequency noise if control is idle while being transparent if control is active, where short or open is determined by the control line signal level itself.
Abstract Quantum computers, which take advantage of the superposition and entanglement of physical states, could outperform their classical counterparts in solving problems with technological impact such as factoring large numbers and searching databases. A quantum processor executes algorithms by applying a programmable sequence of gates to an initialized state of qubits, which coherently evolves into a final state containing the result of the computation. Although quantum processors with a few qubits have been demonstrated on multiple quantum computing platforms, realization of solid-state programmable quantum processor under ambient conditions remains elusive. Here we report a programable quantum processor that can be programmed with fifteen parameters to realize arbitrary unitary transformations on two spin qubits in a nitrogen-vacancy (NV) center in diamond. We implemented the Deutsch-Jozsa and Grover search algorithms with average success rates above 80%. The results pave the way to implement the programmable method in a large-scale quantum processor.
This study introduces a superconducting quantum chip architecture designed to simultaneously preserve entanglement and readout fidelity, addressing one of the key trade-offs in the development of scalable quantum hardware. In conventional quantum circuits, strong qubit qubit coupling enhances entanglement but often leads to undesired crosstalk, dephasing, and reduced measurement fidelity. To mitigate these effects, we propose a hybrid multiqubit configuration consisting of nine transmon qubits organized into interior and exterior groups, interconnected via a flux tunable qubit and a network of distributed resonators. The interior qubits along with tunable qubit form an entanglement core, while the exterior qubits operate in the dispersive regime under large detuning to enable readout. The degree of entanglement can be dynamically tuned by adjusting the coupling between the central tunable qubit and the interior qubits. The total Hamiltonian includes all significant coupling contributions, encompassing effective exchange interactions among interior and exterior qubits, as well as their mediated couplings through interface resonators. By numerically solving the complete Hamiltonian alongside the Lindblad master equation, the system dynamics are characterized, allowing evaluation of both spectroscopic features and separation fidelity. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed design maintains strong entanglement by creating the avoided-crossing region while sustaining measurement fidelity around 0.995 under realistic noise conditions. These findings confirm that entanglement strength and readout fidelity can be co-optimized within a single, reconfigurable architecture, establishing a viable route toward high-performance and scalable superconducting quantum processors.