Abstract We improve the quality of quantum circuits on superconducting quantum computing systems, as measured by the quantum volume (QV), with a combination of dynamical decoupling, compiler optimizations, shorter two-qubit gates, and excited state promoted readout. This result shows that the path to larger QV systems requires the simultaneous increase of coherence, control gate fidelities, measurement fidelities, and smarter software which takes into account hardware details, thereby demonstrating the need to continue to co-design the software and hardware stack for the foreseeable future.
Nonreciprocal microwave devices, such as circulators and isolators, are critical in high-fidelity qubit readout schemes. They unidirectionally route the readout signals and protect the qubits against noise coming from the output chain. However, cryogenic circulators and isolators are prohibitive in scalable superconducting architectures because they rely on magneto-optical effects. Here, we realize an on-chip, single-microwave-pump Josephson ISolator (JIS), formed by coupling two nondegenerate Josephson mixers in an interferometric scheme. We unravel the interplay between the orientation parity of the magnetic fluxes, biasing the mixers, and the JIS directionality. Furthermore, we build a motherboard, which integrates the JIS and other superconducting components, including a Josephson directional amplifier, into a printed circuit and use it to read out a qubit with 92% fidelity, while maintaining 75% of its T2E. Improved versions of this motherboard could replace magnetic circulators and isolators in large superconducting quantum processors.
We use an atomic force microscope (AFM) tip to locally probe the electronic properties of semiconducting carbon nanotube transistors. A gold-coated AFM tip serves as a voltage or current probe in three-probe measurement setup. Using the tip as a movable current probe, we investigate the scaling of the device properties with channel length. Using the tip as a voltage probe, we study the properties of the contacts. We find that Au makes an excellent contact in the p region, with no Schottky barrier. In the n region, large contact resistances were found which dominate the transport properties.
Flux-tunable qubits are a useful resource for superconducting quantum processors. They can be used to perform cPhase gates, facilitate fast reset protocols, avoid qubit-frequency collisions in large processors, and enable certain fast readout schemes. However, flux-tunable qubits suffer from a trade-off between their tunability range and sensitivity to flux noise. Optimizing this trade-off is particularly important for enabling fast, high-fidelity, all-microwave cross-resonance gates in large, high-coherence processors. This is mainly because cross-resonance gates set stringent conditions on the frequency landscape of neighboring qubits, which are difficult to satisfy with non-tunable transmons due to their relatively large fabrication imprecision. To solve this problem, we realize a coherent, flux-tunable, transmon-like qubit, which exhibits a frequency tunability range as small as 43 MHz, and whose frequency, anharmonicity and tunability range are set by a few experimentally achievable design parameters. Such a weakly tunable qubit is useful for avoiding frequency collisions in a large lattice while limiting its susceptibility to flux noise.
Datasets for paper Effects of surface treatments on flux tunable transmon qubits. The datasets provide the data for Figures 2-5 in csv format and a description on how the figures can be reproduced.
