Circuit quantum electrodynamics is one of the most promising platforms for building quantum information processors. To meet the stringent performance requirements, high-fidelity general-purpose numerical methods are increasingly needed to improve designs. Currently, there exist a limited number of methods for analyzing these systems and they suffer from problematic efficiency limitations. One challenge in developing more efficient methods is the lack of available reference data that can be generated to validate them. Here, we develop an analytical quantum full-wave solution for a transmon qubit in a 3D cavity that can validate numerical methods in the future. We start by reviewing the basics of the field-based quantization method used before showing how classical electromagnetic theories can be used to analytically evaluate all field-based parameters in our formulation. We validate our analytical solution by calculating experimentally-relevant system parameters and comparing against approaches that use numerical EM eigenmodes in their solution.
In this experiment, we couple a superconducting transmon qubit to a high-impedance $645\phantom{\rule{0.28em}{0ex}}\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Omega}}$ microwave resonator. Doing so leads to a large qubit-resonator coupling rate
g, measured through a large vacuum Rabi splitting of $2g\ensuremath{\simeq}910$ MHz. The coupling is a significant fraction of the qubit and resonator oscillation frequencies $\ensuremath{\omega}$, placing our system close to the ultrastrong coupling regime ($\overline{g}=g/\ensuremath{\omega}=0.071$ on resonance). Combining this setup with a vacuum-gap transmon architecture shows the potential of reaching deep into the ultrastrong coupling $\overline{g}\ensuremath{\sim}0.45$ with transmon qubits.
Abstract Superconducting quantum circuits are a leading platform for quantum-information processing, but their development requires expertise spanning device design, microfabrication, cryogenic operation, microwave control, and quantum characterization. In this work, we report the realization of a flux-tunable superconducting transmon platform and present an integrated workflow encompassing design, fabrication, measurement, and numerical modeling. The device consists of an
Al/AlOx/Al transmon coupled to a three-dimensional microwave cavity operating in the circuit quantum electrodynamics (cQED) dispersive regime. Two-tone spectroscopy reveals a fundamental transition frequency of
ω01=5.0122 GHz and an anharmonicity of
α/2π=−202.4 MHz , corresponding to
EJ/EC≈82.9 . Flux spectroscopy yields a cavity-qubit coupling strength of
g/2π=260 MHz , while the cavity linewidth gives a loaded quality factor of
QL=6127 and a Purcell limit of
T1Purcell≈82 μs . Time-domain measurements yield coherence times of
T1=17.4 μs and
T2∗=5.8 μs . To investigate coherence and dissipation in the device, the experimental observations are analyzed within a Lindblad master-equation framework describing cavity photon loss and thermal excitation, qubit energy relaxation, and pure dephasing processes. Using a set of experimentally extracted parameters, the model reproduces the measured spectroscopic and time-domain observables, providing a quantitative description of the open-system dynamics of the transmon-cavity platform. The analysis shows that the measured coherence is primarily limited by pure dephasing and energy-relaxation processes, whereas thermal excitation plays a minor role under the experimental conditions. Inspired by the broader framework of quantum dissipation in macroscopic quantum systems pioneered by Caldeira and collaborators, this approach enables a quantitative analysis of relaxation and dephasing processes in superconducting quantum circuits. Beyond the characterization of a single device, the present work demonstrates the establishment of the expertise, infrastructure, and experimental workflow required for the design, fabrication, measurement, and modeling of superconducting quantum circuits, contributing to the development of quantum technologies in Brazil and related applications.
Superconducting qubits are a promising technology for building a scalable quantum computer. An important architecture employed in the field is called Circuit Quantum Electrodynamics (circuit QED), where such qubits are combined with high quality microwave cavities to study the interaction between artificial atoms and single microwave photons. The ultra-strong coupling achieved in these systems allows for control and readout of the quantum state of qubits to perform quantum information processing. The work on circuit QED performed in this thesis consisted of realizing an experimental setup for qubit experiments in a new laboratory, investigating the coherence and decay of higher energy levels of superconducting transmon qubits and finally demonstrating a novel coaxial form of circuit QED. Designing and building a 3D circuit QED setup involved the following main accomplishments: producing high quality 3D cavities; designing and installing the cryogenic microwave setup as well as the room temperature amplification and data acquisition circuitry; successfully developing a recipe for the fabrication of Josephson junctions; controlling and measuring superconducting 3D transmon qubits at 10mK. Several qubits were fully characterised and have shown coherence times of several microseconds and relaxation times up to 25μs. Superconducting qubits in fact possess higher energy levels that can provide significant computational advantages in quantum information applications. In experiments performed at MIT, preparation and control of the five lowest states of a transmon qubit was demonstrated, followed by an investigation of the phase coherence and decay dynamics of these higher energy levels. The decay was found to proceed mainly sequentially with relaxation times in excess of 20μs for all transitions. A direct measurement of the charge dispersion of these levels was performed to explore their characteristics of dephasing. This experiment was also reproduced on a 3D transmon fabricated and measured in Oxford, where due to a higher effective qubit temperature a multi-level decay model including thermal excitations was developed to explain the observed relaxation dynamics. Finally, a coaxial transmon, which we name the coaxmon, is presented and measured with a coaxial LC readout resonator and input/output coupling ports placed inline along the third dimension. This novel coaxial circuit QED architecture holds great promise for developing a scalable planar grid of qubits to build a quantum computer.
Three-dimensional superconducting radio-frequency (SRF) cavities provide exceptionally long-lived electromagnetic modes and, when coupled to nonlinear elements such as transmon qubits, become promising architectures for bosonic quantum information processing. The inverse design of such systems, i.e., recovering device geometries that produce specified electromagnetic and coupling targets, is generally a one-to-many problem. The qubit-cavity coupling strength depends sensitively on both the transmon geometry and its position within the cavity's electromagnetic field. As these systems scale up and their design parameter spaces grow, the cost of conventional iterative simulation becomes prohibitive. We present two deep neural network (DNN) approaches that address this inverse-design problem at complementary levels of the design stack. The first proposes SRF cavity geometries that produce target cavity observables. The second proposes transmon qubit designs that produce target qubit-cavity parameters - the coupling rate, qubit frequency, and anharmonicity
(g,νq,α). The recovered candidate designs match the targets to within ~5% (cavity) and ~2% (transmon), confirmed by end-to-end re-simulation. Both approaches map desired device behavior directly to candidate designs, a fast alternative to the iterative simulation studies usually required.
Three-dimensional(3D) transmon is a kind of superconducting qubit with long decoherence time, which has important applications in superconducting quantum computation, quantum optics, cavity quantum electrodynamics, et al. Rabi oscillation is a vital method to characterize the decoherence time of quantum system, and it is also a basic experiment to demonstrate the energy level evolution of quantum system. In order to test the Rabi oscillation of 3D transmon, strict timing control is necessary, and the process of testing and debugging is complicated. In this paper, 3D transmon samples are fabricated and their basic parameters EC = 348.74 MHz and EJ = 11.556 GHz are tested and characterized. The coupling coefficient g2/Δ between qubit and the 3D cavity is 43 MHz, which is located in the dispersive regime. The qubit’s first transition frequency f01 = 9.2709 GHz, and the second transition frequency f12 = 9.0100 GHz. The 3D resonator is fabricated by the material 6061T6 aluminum, the loaded quality factor is 4.8 × 105, and the bare frequency of the resonator is 8.108 GHz. Through comparison, it is found that the Rabi oscillation time obtained by the proposed method is shorter than by the Jaynes-Cummings method. The main reasons are as follows. First, the measurement of network analyzer is a continuous measurement, and the test signal always affects the decoherence process of 3D transmon. Second, the quantum bit is in the ground state after decoherence, and the ground state measured by the network analyzer accounts for a relatively high proportion, which causes the curve measured by the network analyzer to be one-sided attenuation oscillation. Third, the dispersive readout method is related to the quality factor of the superconducting cavity. The storage time of microwave photons in the superconducting cavity is longer than the decoherence time of 3D transmon, so the quantum information is partially decohered before leaving the superconducting cavity, which will shorten the Rabi oscillation time. An innovative Rabi oscillation test method based on network analyzer is presented. The test system based on this method is simple to build and can be used as a new way to quickly verify whether 3D transmon has quantum characteristics. This method can also be extended to other quantum systems for preliminarily verifying the time domain characteristics.