Progress in superconducting qubits from the perspective of coherence and readout

Superconducting qubits are Josephson junction-based circuits that exhibit macroscopic quantum behavior and can be manipulated as artificial atoms.Benefiting from the well-developed technology of microfabrication and microwave engineering,superconducting qubits have great advantages in design flexibility,controllability,and scalability.Over the past decade,there has been rapid progress in the field,which greatly improved our understanding of qubit decoherence and circuit optimization.The single-qubit coherence time has been steadily raised to the order of 10 to 100μs,allowing for the demonstration of high-fidelity gate operations and measurement-based feedback control.Here we review recent progress in the coherence and readout of superconducting qubits.     

嵌入到Fabry-Perot谐振腔的双晶约瑟夫森结阵列的阻抗匹配和相位锁定研究

在He等人所做的嵌入到Fabry-Perot谐振腔中约瑟夫森结阵列的微波辐照研究基础上,提出了同时实现约瑟夫森结阵列阻抗匹配和相位锁定的方法,进行了相关的电磁仿真和数值计算.双晶约瑟夫森结阵列被制作在YSZ双晶基片上,同时被嵌入到Fabry-Perot谐振腔内.通过在基片上制作与结阵列集成的串联馈电半波偶极天线阵,并对其结构进行优化实现了结与天线的匹配,数值计算表明结的辐射效率达到94%;利用天线阵辐射场的特征和对模型合理的设计,使Fabry-Perot谐振腔和基片同时谐振在合适的模式下,从而使结阵列与谐 关键词： 约瑟夫森结阵列 阻抗匹配 相位锁定 Fabry-Perot谐振腔     

Chaotic dynamics of resistively coupled DC-driven distinct Josephson junctions and the effects of circuit parameters

Two distinct Josephson junctions (JJs) connected with a constant coupling resistance R_cp are theoretically considered to investigate the overall dynamics below and above the critical current I_c. The circuit model of the device is driven by two DC current sources, I₁ and I₂. Each junction is characterized by a nonlinear resistive–capacitive junction (NRCSJ). Having constructed the circuit model, time-dependent simulations are carried out for a variety of control parameter sets. Common techniques such as bifurcation diagrams, two-dimensional attractors and Lyapunov exponents are applied for the determination of chaotic as well as periodic dynamics of the superconducting junction devices. According to the findings, two states (namely superconducting and ordinary conducting) are determined as functions of the source currents. The chaotic current which flows through R_cp exhibits a very rich behavior depending on the source currents I₁ and I₂ and junction capacitances C₁ and C₂. The device characteristics are summarized by a number of three-dimensional phase diagrams in the parameter space. In addition, for certain parameters, hyper-chaotic cases with two positive Lyapunov exponents are encountered. In contrast to earlier studies claiming the need for a sinusoidal feeding current for generating a chaotic signal, our circuitry can easily generate one via a DC source.     

Rotating Bose-Einstein condensate in an optical lattice: Formulation of vortex configuration for the ground state

We consider a rotating Bose-Einstein condensate in an optical lattice in the regime in which the system Hamiltonian can be mapped onto a Josephson junction array. In an approximate scheme where the couplings are assumed uniform, the ground state energy is formulated in terms of the vortex configuration. Application of the method for the ladder case presented and the results are compared with Monte-Carlo method.     

Exciton-polaritons in lattices: A non-linear photonic simulator

Microcavity polaritons are mixed light–matter quasiparticles with extraordinary nonlinear properties, which can be easily accessed in photoluminescence experiments. Thanks to the possibility of designing the potential landscape of polaritons, this system provides a versatile photonic platform to emulate 1D and 2D Hamiltonians. Polaritons allow transposing to the photonic world some of the properties of electrons in solid-state systems, and to engineer Hamiltonians for photons with novel transport properties. Here we review some experimental implementations of polariton Hamiltonians using lattice geometries.     

Triplet pairing states with equal spins in ferromagnet/superconductor heterojunctions for noncollinear magnetizations

Four-component Bogoliubov-de Gennes equations are applied to study tunneling conductance spectra of ferromagnet/ferromagnet/d-wave superconductor (F₁/F₂/d-wave S) tunnel junctions and to find out signs of spin-triplet pairing correlations induced in the proximity structure. The pairing correlations with equal spins arises from the novel Andreev reflection (AR), which requires at least three factors: the usual AR at the F₂/S interface, spin flip in the F₂ layer, and superconducting coherence kept up in the F₂ layer. Effects of angle α between magnetizations of the two F layers, polarizations of the F₁ and F₂ layers, the thickness of the F₂ layer, and the orientation of the d-wave S crystal on the tunneling conductance are investigated. A conversion from a zero-bias conductance dip at α = 0 to a zero-bias conductance peak at a certain value of α can be seen as a sign of generated spin-triplet correlations.     

Fabrication of rhenium Josephson junctions

Rhenium is a superconductor with a relatively weak tendency to oxidize, which is advantageous in superconducting quantum circuit and qubit applications. In this work, Re/A1-A1Ox/Re Josephson tunnel junctions were fabricated using a selective film-etching process similar to that developed in Nb trilayer technology. The Re films had a superconducting transition temperature of 4.8 K and a transition width of 0.2 K. The junctions were found to be highly reproducible using the fabrication process and their characteristics had good quality with a low leakage current and showed a superconducting gap of 0.55 meV.     

Josephson oscillation of a superfluid Fermi gas

Using the complete numerical solution of a time-dependent three-dimensional mean-field model we study the Josephson oscillation of a superfluid Fermi gas (SFG) at zero temperature formed in a combined axially-symmetric harmonic plus one-dimensional periodic optical-lattice (OL) potentials after displacing the harmonic trap along the axial OL axis. We study the dependence of Josephson frequency on the strength of the OL potential. The Josephson frequency decreases with increasing strength as found in the experiment of Cataliotti et al. [Science 293, 843 (2001)] for a Bose-Einstein condensate and of the experiment of Pezzè et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 93, 120401 (2004)] for an ideal Fermi gas. We demonstrate a breakdown of Josephson oscillation in the SFG for a large displacement of the harmonic trap. These features of Josephson oscillation of a SFG can be tested experimentally.     

Coherence properties of a Bose-Einstein condensate in an optical superlattice

We study the effect of a one dimensional optical superlattice on the superfluid properties (superfluid fraction, number squeezing, dynamic structure factor) and the quasi-momentum distribution of the Mott-insulator. We show that due to the secondary lattice, there is a decrease in the superfluid fraction and the number fluctuation. The dynamic structure factor which can be measured by Bragg spectroscopy is also suppressed due to the addition of the secondary lattice. The visibility of the interference pattern (the quasi-momentum distribution) of the Mott-insulator is found to decrease due to the presence of the secondary lattice. Our results have important implications in atom interferometry and quantum computation in optical lattices.