Controlling coherent state superpositions with superconducting circuits

Eddy Collin, Grégoire Ithier, A. Aassime +3 more

Coherent superpositions of quantum states have already been demonstrated in different superconducting circuits based on Josephson junctions. These circuits are now considered for implementing quantum bits. We report on experiments in which the state of a qubit circuit, the quantronium, is efficiently manipulated using methods inspired from nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR): multipulse sequences are used to perform arbitrary operations, to improve their accuracy, and to fight decoherence.

Stefan Zeppetzauer

Jonathan L. Habif, M. J. Feldman, Mark F. Bocko

Robert J. Schoelkopf

Over the last decade and a half, superconducting circuits have advanced to the point where we can generate and detect highly-entangled states, and perform universal quantum gates. Meanwhile, the coherence properties of these systems have improved more than 10,000-fold. I will describe recent experiments, such as the latest advance in coherence using a three-dimensional implementation of qubits interacting with microwave cavities, called “3D circuit QED.” The control and strong interactions possible in superconducting circuits make it possible to generate non-classical states of light, including large superpositions known as “Schrodinger cat” states. This field has many interesting prospects both for applications in quantum information processing, and fundamental investigations of the boundary between the macroscopic classical world and the microscopic world of the quantum.

Robert J. Schoelkopf

Diego Ristè

Superconducting circuits have recently risen to the forefront of the solid-state prototypes for quantum computing. Reaching the stage of robust quantum computing requires closing the loop between measurement and control of quantum bits (qubits). This thesis presents the realization of feedback control of superconducting qubits based on projective measurement, with initial applications. The first application is a reset operation which initializes a qubit in the ground state fast and on demand. In a second experiment, we transform a cavity into a two-qubit parity meter, which is capable of generating entanglement starting from an unentangled superposition state. We then employ feedback to turn the generation of entanglement from probabilistic to deterministic, thus combining two key ingredients - parity measurement and feedback - of quantum error correction. As a third application, we transform a superconducting qubit into a charge-parity detector to investigate the limits of quasiparticle tunneling to qubit coherence. We find room for at least a tenfold increase in qubit coherence times before quasiparticles become the bottleneck. Finally, we present our latest results towards implementing the bit-flip error correction code in a five-qubit processor and discuss the role of feedback control in the future development of superconducting quantum circuits.