Encoding quantum information in quantum states with disjoint wave-function support and noise insensitive energies is the key behind the idea of qubit protection. While fully protected qubits are expected to offer exponential protection against both energy relaxation and pure dephasing, simpler circuits may grant partial protection with currently achievable parameters. Here, we study a fluxonium circuit in which the wave-functions are engineered to minimize their overlap while benefiting from a first-order-insensitive flux sweet spot. Taking advantage of a large superinductance ($L\sim 1~μ\rm{H}$), our circuit incorporates a resonant tunneling mechanism at zero external flux that couples states with the same fluxon parity, thus enabling bifluxon tunneling. The states $|0\rangle$ and $|1\rangle$ are encoded in wave-functions with parities 0 and 1, respectively, ensuring a minimal form of protection against relaxation. Two-tone spectroscopy reveals the energy level structure of the circuit and the presence of $4 π$ quantum-phase slips between different potential wells corresponding to $m=\pm 1$ fluxons, which can be precisely described by a simple fluxonium Hamiltonian or by an effective bifluxon Hamiltonian. Despite suboptimal fabrication, the measured relaxation ($T_1 = 177\pm 3 ~μs$) and dephasing ($T_2^E = 75\pm 5~μ\rm{s}$) times not only demonstrate the relevance of our approach but also opens an alternative direction towards quantum computing using partially-protected fluxonium qubits.
We analyze a high-fidelity two-qubit gate using fast flux pulses on superconducting fluxonium qubits. The gate is realized by temporarily detuning magnetic flux through fluxonium loop away from the half flux quantum sweet spot. We simulate dynamics of two capacitively coupled fluxoniums during the flux pulses and optimize the pulse parameters to obtain a highly accurate $\sqrt{i\mathrm{swap}}$-like entangling gate. We also evaluate the effect of the flux noise and qubit relaxation on the gate fidelity. Our results demonstrate that the gate error remains below $10^{-4}$ for currently achievable…
The superconducting fluxonium circuit is an RF-SQUID-type flux qubit that uses a large inductance built from an array of Josephson junctions or a high kinetic inductance material. This inductance suppresses charge sensitivity exponentially and flux sensitivity quadratically. In contrast to the transmon qubit, the anharmonicity of fluxonium can be large and positive, allowing for better separation between the low energy qubit manifold of the circuit and higher-lying excited states. Here, we propose a tunable coupling scheme for implementing two-qubit gates on fixed-frequency fluxonium qubits, b…
Most quantum-error correcting codes assume that the decoherence of each physical qubit is independent of the decoherence of any other physical qubit. We can test the validity of this assumption in an experimental setup where a microwave feedline couples to multiple qubits by examining correlations between the qubits. Here, we investigate the correlations between fluxonium qubits located in a single waveguide. Despite being in a wide-bandwidth electromagnetic environment, the qubits have measured relaxation times in excess of 100 us. We use cascaded Josephson parametric amplifiers to measure th…
Superconducting fluxonium qubits provide a promising alternative to transmons on the path toward large-scale superconductor-based quantum computing due to their better coherence and larger anharmonicity. A major challenge for multi-qubit fluxonium devices is the experimental demonstration of a scalable crosstalk-free multi-qubit architecture with high fidelity single-qubit and two-qubit gates, single-shot readout and state initialization. Here, we present a two-qubit fluxonium-based quantum processor with a tunable coupler element following our theoretical proposal [DOI: 10.1063/5.0064800]. We…
Interaction-Resilient Scalable Fluxonium Architecture with All-Microwave Gates
Institute of Science and Technology Austria（奥地利科学技术研究所）；National University of Science and Technology ‘‘MISIS’’（国立科技大学 MISIS）；Russian Quantum Center（俄罗斯量子中心）
Long coherence times, large anharmonicity and robust charge-noise insensitivity render fluxonium qubits an interesting alternative to transmons. Recent experiments have demonstrated record coherence times for low-frequency fluxonia. Here, we propose a galvanic-coupling scheme with flux-tunable $\textit{XX}$ coupling. To implement a high-fidelity entangling $\sqrt{i\mathrm{SWAP}}$ gate, we modulate the strength of this coupling and devise variable-time identity gates to synchronize required single-qubit operations. Both types of gates are implemented using strong ac flux drives, lasting for onl…
Extensible Fluxonium Architecture Using Tunable Couplers with Low Shunt Capacitance
Quantum Science Center of Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area（粤港澳大湾区量子科学中心）；Institute of Quantum Information and Technology, Nanjing University of Posts and Telecommunications（南京邮电大学量子信息与科技研究院）；Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Quantum Information Science and Technology, Nanjing University（南京大学江苏省量子信息科学与技术重点实验室）；Key Laboratory of Atomic and Subatomic Structure and Quantum Control (South China Normal University), Ministry of Education（教育部原子与亚原子结构及量子控制重点实验室（华南师范大学））；School of Physics, South China Normal University（华南师范大学物理学院）；Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Quantum Engineering and Quantum Materials（广东省量子工程与量子材料重点实验室）；Frontier Research Institute for Physics, South China Normal University（华南师范大学前沿物理研究所）
We analyze the charge-noise induced coherence time $T_2$ of the fluxonium qubit as a function of the number of array junctions in the device, $N$. The pure dephasing rate decreases with $N$, but we find that the relaxation rate increases, so $T_2$ achieves an optimum as a function of $N$. This optimum can be much smaller than the number typically chosen in experiments, yielding a route to improved fluxonium coherence and simplified device fabrication at the same time.
Using a fluxonium qubit with in situ tunability of its Josephson energy, we characterize its energy relaxation at different flux biases as well as different Josephson energy values. The relaxation rate at qubit energy values, ranging more than one order of magnitude around the thermal energy $k_B T$, can be quantitatively explained by a combination of dielectric loss and $1/f$ flux noise with a crossover point. The amplitude of the $1/f$ flux noise is consistent with that extracted from the qubit dephasing measurements at the flux sensitive points. In the dielectric loss dominant regime, the l…
Correlation-Assisted Odd-Parity Encoded Gates in Coupled Fluxonium Qubits under Non-Markovian TLS Noise
School of Physics, Hangzhou Dianzi University（杭州电子科技大学物理学院）；State Key Laboratory of Quantum Optics Technologies and Devices, Shanxi University（山西大学量子光学技术与器件国家重点实验室）；Zhejiang Key Laboratory of Quantum State Control and Optical Field Manipulation, Hangzhou Dianzi University（杭州电子科技大学量子态调控与光场操纵浙江省重点实验室）
Superconducting qubits provide a promising path toward building large-scale quantum computers. The simple and robust transmon qubit has been the leading platform, achieving multiple milestones. However, fault-tolerant quantum computing calls for qubit operations at error rates significantly lower than those exhibited in the state of the art. Consequently, alternative superconducting qubits with better error protection have attracted increasing interest. Among them, fluxonium is a particularly promising candidate, featuring large anharmonicity and long coherence times. Here, we engineer a fluxo…
We characterize a fluxonium qubit consisting of a Josephson junction inductively shunted with a NbTiN nanowire superinductance. We explain the measured energy spectrum by means of a multimode theory accounting for the distributed nature of the superinductance and the effect of the circuit nonlinearity to all orders in the Josephson potential. Using multiphoton Raman spectroscopy, we address multiple fluxonium transitions, observe multilevel Autler-Townes splitting and measure an excited state lifetime of $T_\mathrm{1}=20$ $μ$s. By measuring $T_1$ at different magnetic flux values, we find a cr…
We propose a family of microwave-activated entangling gates on two capacitively coupled fluxonium qubits. A microwave pulse applied to either qubit at a frequency near the half-frequency of the $|00\rangle - |11\rangle$ transition induces two-photon Rabi oscillations with a negligible leakage outside the computational subspace, owing to the strong anharmonicity of fluxoniums. By adjusting the drive frequency, amplitude, and duration, we obtain the gate family that is locally equivalent to the fermionic-simulation gates such as $\sqrt{\rm SWAP}$-like and controlled-phase gates. The gate error c…
We report superconducting fluxonium qubits with coherence times largely limited by energy relaxation and reproducibly satisfying T2 > 100 microseconds (T2 > 300 microseconds in one device). Moreover, given the state of the art values of the surface loss tangent and the 1/f flux noise amplitude, coherence can be further improved beyond 1 millisecond. Our results violate a common viewpoint that the number of Josephson junctions in a superconducting circuit -- over 100 here -- must be minimized for best qubit coherence. We outline how the unique to fluxonium combination of long coherence time and…
We present a tradeoff between leakage and pure dephasing errors for the fluxonium circuit. We show that in the insulating regime, i.e., when the persistent current flowing across the circuit is suppressed, the pure dephasing rate decreases exponentially as the impedance of the circuit is increased. In contrast to this exponential decrease, the qubit remains sufficiently anharmonic so that gates times can still be short, allowing for significant reduction in the computational error rates.
The superconducting fluxonium qubit has a great potential for high-fidelity quantum gates with its long coherence times and strong anharmonicity at the half flux quantum sweet spot. However, current implementations of two-qubit gates compromise fluxonium's coherence properties by requiring either a temporary population of the non-computational states or tuning the magnetic flux off the sweet spot. Here we realize a fast all-microwave cross-resonance gate between two capacitively-coupled fluxoniums with the qubit dynamics well confined to the computational space. We demonstrate a direct CNOT ga…
