Superconducting phase qubits with shadow-evaporated Josephson junctions

We develop a fabrication process for the superconducting phase qubits in which Josephson junctions for both the qubit and superconducting quantum interference device(SQUID) detector are prepared by shadow evaporation with a suspended bridge. Al junctions with areas as small as 0.05 μm~2 are fabricated for the qubit, in which the number of the decoherencecausing two-level systems(TLS) residing in the tunnel barrier and proportional to the junction area are greatly reduced. The measured energy spectrum shows no avoided crossing arising from coherent TLS in the experimentally reachable flux bias range of the phase qubit, which demonstrates the energy relaxation time T_1 and dephasing time T_φ on the order of 100 ns and 50 ns, respectively. We discuss several possible origins of decoherence from incoherent or weakly-coupled coherent TLS and further improvements of the qubit performance.     

The initial decoherence of the mesoscopic Josephson junction flux qubit

For a mesoscopic radio frequency superconducting quantum interference device (rfSQUID), at a degeneracy point, the system reduces to a quantum two-state system which can be used as a flux qubit. When the noise environment is equivalent to a harmonic oscillators bath, by virtue of an operator-norm measure for the short time decoherence, this paper investigates the initial decoherence of the flux qubit operating in the ohmic noise environment and illustrates its property by means of the numerical evaluation.     

Scalable ion trap quantum computing without moving ions

A hybrid quantum computing scheme is studied where the hybrid qubit is made of an ion trap qubit serving as the information storage and a solid-state charge qubit serving as the quantum processor, connected by a superconducting cavity. In this paper, we extend our previous work [CITE] and study the decoherence, coupling and scalability of the hybrid system. We present our calculations of the decoherence of the coupled ion-charge system due to the charge fluctuations in the solid-state system and the dissipation of the superconducting cavity under laser radiation. A gate scheme that exploits rapid state flips of the charge qubit to reduce decoherence by the charge noise is designed. We also study a superconducting switch that is inserted between the cavity and the charge qubit and provides tunable coupling between the qubits. The scalability of the hybrid scheme is discussed together with several potential experimental obstacles in realizing this scheme.     

Investigation of Decoherence of Superconducting Charge Qubit Entangled with the Environment

In the Born-Markov approximation, a method that calculates the energy relaxation time T ₁ and the decoherence time T ₂ of superconducting qubits is given by solving the set of Bloch-Redfield equations and considering the results of decoherence of a superconducting charge qubit. Compared to the spin-boson model, it not only contains the decoherence being caused by the dissipative environment, but also includes the decoherence being generated by the dissipative elements in a superconducting electronic circuit. Hence, it is good for studying the decoherence of superconducting qubits comprehensively.     

Enhanced coherence of a quantum doublet coupled to Tomonaga-Luttinger liquid leads

We use boundary field theory to describe the phases accessible to a tetrahedral qubit coupled to Josephson junction chains acting as Tomonaga-Luttinger liquid leads. We prove that, in a pertinent range of the fabrication and control parameters, an attractive finite coupling fixed point emerges due to the geometry of the composite Josephson junction network. We show that this new stable phase is characterized by the emergence of a quantum doublet which is robust not only against the noise in the external control parameters (magnetic flux, gate voltage) but also against the decoherence induced by the coupling of the tetrahedral qubit with the superconducting leads. We provide protocols allowing to read and to manipulate the state of the emerging quantum doublet and argue that a tetrahedral Josephson junction network operating near the new finite coupling fixed point may be fabricated with today?s technologies.     

Quasiparticle decoherence in d-wave superconducting qubits

It is usually argued that the presence of gapless quasiparticle excitations at the nodes of the d-wave superconducting gap should strongly decohere the quantum states of a d-wave qubit, making quantum effects practically unobservable. Using a self-consistent linear response nonequilibrium quasiclassical formalism, we show that this is not necessarily true. We find quasiparticle conductance of a d-wave grain boundary junction to be strongly phase dependent. Midgap states as well as nodal quasiparticles contribute to the conductance and therefore decoherence. Quantum behavior is estimated to be detectable in a qubit containing a d-wave junction with appropriate parameters.     

Quantum jumps between macroscopic quantum states of a superconducting qubit coupled to a microscopic two-level system

We report the observation of quantum jumps between macroscopic quantum states in a superconducting phase qubit coupled to the two-level systems in the Josephson tunnel junction, and all key features of quantum jumps are confirmed in the experiments. Moreover, quantum jumps can be used to calibrate such two-level systems, which are believed to be one of the main decoherence sources in Josephson devices.     

Decoherence in solid-state qubits

The interaction of solid-state qubits with environmental degrees of freedom strongly affects the qubit dynamics, and leads to decoherence. In quantum information processing with solid-state qubits, decoherence significantly limits the performances of such devices. Therefore, it is necessary to fully understand the mechanisms that lead to decoherence. In this review, we discuss how decoherence affects two of the most successful realizations of solid-state qubits, namely, spin qubits and superconducting qubits. In the former, the qubit is encoded in the spin 1/2 of the electron, and it is implemented by confining the electron spin in a semiconductor quantum dot. Superconducting devices show quantum behaviour at low temperatures, and the qubit is encoded in the two lowest energy levels of a superconducting circuit. The electron spin in a quantum dot has two main decoherence channels, a (Markovian) phonon-assisted relaxation channel, due to the presence of a spin–orbit interaction, and a (non-Markovian) spin bath constituted by the spins of the nuclei in the quantum dot that interact with the electron spin via the hyperfine interaction. In a superconducting qubit, decoherence takes place as a result of fluctuations in the control parameters, such as bias currents, applied flux and bias voltages, and via losses in the dissipative circuit elements.     

Manipulation of superconducting qubit with direct digital synthesis

We investigate the XY control and manipulation of the superconducting qubit state using direct digital synthesis(DDS)for the microwave pulse signal generation.The decoherence time, gate fidelity, and other qubit properties are measured and carefully characterized, and compared with the results obtained by using the traditional mixing technique for the microwave pulse generation.In particular, the qubit performance in the state manipulation with respect to the sampling rate of DDS is studied.Our results demonstrate that the present technique provides a simple and effective method for the XY control and manipulation of the superconducting qubit state.Realistic applications of the technique for the possible future scalable superconducting quantum computation are discussed.     

基于超导量子比特的电磁感应透明研究进展

超导量子计算是目前被认为最有希望实现量子计算机的方案之一. 超导量子比特是超导量子计算的核心部件. 如何尽可能的增加超导量子比特的退相干时间, 大规模的集成超导量子比特已成为超导量子计算研究的主要方向. 超导量子比特作为宏观的人工原子, 有许多量子光学现象都能够在其中观测到. 利用超导量子比特实现电磁感应透明为研究超导量子比特的退相干机理提供了新手段, 为研究非线性光学、光存储、光的超慢速传输等量子光学效应开辟了新思路. 本文介绍了电磁感应透明的理论基础, 总结了目前针对超导量子比特的电磁感应透明研究进展, 对比了一般气体原子与超导量子比特的电磁感应透明区别, 并对超导量子比特实现电磁感应透明的潜在应用进行了总结和展望.     

Energy relaxation time between macroscopic quantum levels in a superconducting persistent-current qubit

We measured the intrawell energy relaxation time tau(d) approximately 24 micros between macroscopic quantum levels in the double well potential of a Nb persistent-current qubit. Interwell population transitions were generated by irradiating the qubit with microwaves. Zero population in the initial well was then observed due to a multilevel decay process in which the initial population relaxed to lower energy levels during the driven transitions. The decoherence time, estimated from tau(d) within the spin-boson model, is about 20 micros for this configuration with a Nb superconducting qubit.     

Generating Squeezed States of Nanomechanical Resonator via a Flux Qubit in a Hybrid System

We propose a scheme for generating squeezed states based on a superconducting hybrid system.Our system consists of a nanomechanical resonator,a superconducting flux qubit,and a superconducting transmission line resonator.Using our proposal,one can easily generate the squeezed states of the nanomechanical resonator.In our scheme,the nonlinear interaction between the nanomechanical resonator and the superconducting transmission line resonator can be implemented by the flux qubit as 'nonlinear media' with a tunable Josephson energy.The realization of the nonlinearity does not need any operations on the flux qubit and just needs to adiabatically keep it at the ground state,which can greatly decrease the effect of the decoherence of the flux qubit on the squeezed efficiency.     

Decoherence in Josephson qubits from dielectric loss

Dielectric loss from two-level states is shown to be a dominant decoherence source in superconducting quantum bits. Depending on the qubit design, dielectric loss from insulating materials or the tunnel junction can lead to short coherence times. We show that a variety of microwave and qubit measurements are well modeled by loss from resonant absorption of two-level defects. Our results demonstrate that this loss can be significantly reduced by using better dielectrics and fabricating junctions of small area . With a redesigned phase qubit employing low-loss dielectrics, the energy relaxation rate has been improved by a factor of 20, opening up the possibility of multiqubit gates and algorithms.     

Effect of mutual inductance coupling on superconducting flux qubit decoherence

In the Born-Markov approximation and two-level approximation, and using the Bloch-Redfield equation, the decoherence property of superconducting quantum circuit with a flux qubit is investigated. The influence ou decoherence of the mutual inductance coupling between the circuit components is complicated. The mutual inductance coupling between different loops will decrease the decoherence time. However, the mutual inductance coupling of the same loop, in a certain interval, will increase the decoherence time. Therefore, we can control the decoherence time by changing the mutual inductance parameters such as the strength and direction of coupling.     

三维传输子量子比特的退相干参数表征

超导量子比特的退相干时间是决定超导量子计算能否实现的重要指标之一. 文章以三维传输子量子比特(3D transmon)为研究对象, 在氧化硅衬底上制备了三维传输子量子比特, 并在超低温下(10 mK), 采用拉比振荡(Rabi oscillation)、能量弛豫(energy relaxation)、 拉姆齐条纹(Ramsey fringe)、自旋回波(spin echo)的方法, 对其进行了详细的退相干时间常数表征. 结果显示该量子比特的退相干时间在几百纳秒. 根据几种退相干时间的关系进行计算, 可以看出, 低频噪声目前不是影响量子比特退相干的最主要因素, 而氧化硅中的缺陷可能是样品退相干时间的主要瓶颈. 关键词： 三维传输子量子比特 拉比振荡 拉姆齐条纹 自旋回波     

One‐Step Implementation of N‐Qubit Nonadiabatic Holonomic Quantum Gates with Superconducting Qubits via Inverse Hamiltonian Engineering

A protocol is proposed to realize one‐step implementation of the N‐qubit nonadiabatic holonomic quantum gates with superconducting qubits. The inverse Hamiltonian engineering is applied in designing microwave pulses to drive superconducting qubits. By combining curve fitting, the wave shapes of the designed pulses can be described by simple functions, which are not hard to realize in experiments. To demonstrate the effectiveness of the protocol, a three‐qubit holonomic controlled π‐phase gate is taken as an example in numerical simulations. The results show that the protocol holds robustness against noise and decoherence. Therefore, the protocol may provide an alternative approach for implementing N‐qubit nonadiabatic holonomic quantum gates.     

Decoherence in superconducting quantum bits by phonon radiation

We discuss a fundamental limitation for the coherent operation of superconducting quantum bits originating from phonon radiation generated in the Josephson junctions of the device. The time dependent superconducting phase across the junction produces an electric field that couples to the underlying crystal lattice via the piezoelectric effect. We determine the radiation resistance of the junction due to phonon emission and derive substantial decoherence rates for the quantum bits, which are compatible with quality factors measured in recent experiments.     

Entropy Squeezing in Coupled Field-Superconducting Charge Qubit with Intrinsic Decoherence

We investigate the entropy squeezing in the system of a superconducting charge qubit coupled to a single mode field. We find an exact solution of the Milburn equation for the system and discuss the influence of intrinsic decoherence on entropy squeezing. As a comparison, we also consider the variance squeezing. Our results show that in the absence of the intrinsic decoherence both entropy and variance squeezings have the same periodic properties of time, and occur at the same range of time. However, when the intrinsic decoherence is considered, we find that as the time going on the entropy squeezing disappears fast than the variance squeezing, there exists a range of time where entropy squeezing can occur but variance squeezing cannot.     

Decoherence due to nodal quasiparticles in <Emphasis Type="Italic">d</Emphasis>-wave qubits

We study the Josephson junction between two d-wave superconductors, which is discussed as an implementation of a qubit. We propose an approach to calculate the decoherence time due to an intrinsic dissipative process: quantum tunneling between the two minima of the double-well potential excites nodal quasiparticles, which lead to incoherent damping of quantum oscillations. The decoherence is weakest in the mirror junction, where the contribution of nodal quasiparticles corresponds to the superohmic dissipation and becomes small at small tunnel splitting of the energy level in the double-well potential. For available experimental data, we estimate the quality factor.     

Decoherence dynamics of a charge qubit coupled to the noise bath

By virtue of the canonical quantization method, we present a quantization scheme for a charge qubit based on the superconducting quantum interference device (SQUID), taking the self-inductance of the loop into account. Under reasonable short-time approximation, we study the effect of decoherence in the ohmic case by employing the response function and the norm. It is confirmed that the decoherence time, which depends on the parameters of the circuit components, the coupling strength, and the temperature, can be as low as several picoseconds, so there is enough time to record the information.