| Abstract: | The states of a flux qubit with three Josephson junctions were observed with a dc-SQUID. The qubit is an aluminium superconductor loop surrounded by a dc-SQUID for readout. It has two states, which have persistent currents flowing in opposite directions. The system potentially offers the advantage of allowing single-shot/single-system measurements of macroscopic superposition of the two states. We have developed a highly sensitive, low-noise, single-shot detection system, and here we report the first direct observation of a macroscopic quantum superposition. The measured ground and the first excited state showed the same behaviour as the theoretical ones. We also showed that the measured behaviour of the switching current in a dc-SQUID was the same as that of the quantum-mechanically expected value of the switching current in the qubit. |
