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Scalable quantum computing can become a reality with error correction, provided coherent qubits can be constructed in large arrays. The key premise is that physical errors can remain both small and sufficiently uncorrelated as devices scale, so that logical error rates can be exponentially suppressed. However, energetic impacts from cosmic rays and latent radioactivity violate both of these assumptions. An impinging particle ionizes the substrate, radiating high energy phonons that induce a burst of quasiparticles, destroying qubit coherence throughout the device. High-energy radiation has been identified as a source of error in pilot superconducting quantum devices, but lacking a measurement technique able to resolve a single event in detail, the effect on large scale algorithms and error correction in particular remains an open question. Elucidating the physics involved requires operating large numbers of qubits at the same rapid timescales as in error correction, exposing the event's evolution in time and spread in space. Here, we directly observe high-energy rays impacting a large-scale quantum processor. We introduce a rapid space and time-multiplexed measurement method and identify large bursts of quasiparticles that simultaneously and severely limit the energy coherence of all qubits, causing chip-wide failure. We track the events from their initial localised impact to high error rates across the chip. Our results provide direct insights into the scale and dynamics of these damaging error bursts in large-scale devices, and highlight the necessity of mitigation to enable quantum computing to scale.

Implementation of an error-corrected quantum computer is believed to require a quantum processor with a million or more physical qubits, and, in order to run such a processor, a quantum control system of similar scale will be required. Such a controller will need to be integrated within the cryogenic system and in close proximity with the quantum processor in order to make such a system practical. Here, we present a prototype cryogenic CMOS quantum controller designed in a 28-nm bulk CMOS process and optimized to implement a 16-word (4-bit) XY gate instruction set for controlling transmon qubits. After introducing the transmon qubit, including a discussion of how it is controlled, design considerations are discussed, with an emphasis on error rates and scalability. The circuit design is then discussed. Cryogenic performance of the underlying technology is presented, and the results of several quantum control experiments carried out using the integrated controller are described. This article ends with a comparison to the state of the art and a discussion of further research to be carried out. It has been shown that the quantum control IC achieves promising performance while dissipating less than 2 mW of total ac and dc power and requiring a digital data stream of less than 500 Mb/s.

Interactions in quantum systems can spread initially localized quantum information into the exponentially many degrees of freedom of the entire system. Understanding this process, known as quantum scrambling, is key to resolving several open questions in physics. Here, by measuring the time-dependent evolution and fluctuation of out-of-time-order correlators, we experimentally investigate the dynamics of quantum scrambling on a 53-qubit quantum processor. We engineer quantum circuits that distinguish operator spreading and operator entanglement and experimentally observe their respective signatures. We show that whereas operator spreading is captured by an efficient classical model, operator entanglement in idealized circuits requires exponentially scaled computational resources to simulate. These results open the path to studying complex and practically relevant physical observables with near-term quantum processors.

Realizing the potential of quantum computing requires sufficiently low logical error rates1. Many applications call for error rates as low as 10−15 (refs. 2–9), but state-of-the-art quantum platforms typically have physical error rates near 10−3 (refs. 10–14). Quantum error correction15–17 promises to bridge this divide by distributing quantum logical information across many physical qubits in such a way that errors can be detected and corrected. Errors on the encoded logical qubit state can be exponentially suppressed as the number of physical qubits grows, provided that the physical error rates are below a certain threshold and stable over the course of a computation. Here we implement one-dimensional repetition codes embedded in a two-dimensional grid of superconducting qubits that demonstrate exponential suppression of bit-flip or phase-flip errors, reducing logical error per round more than 100-fold when increasing the number of qubits from 5 to 21. Crucially, this error suppression is stable over 50 rounds of error correction. We also introduce a method for analysing error correlations with high precision, allowing us to characterize error locality while performing quantum error correction. Finally, we perform error detection with a small logical qubit using the 2D surface code on the same device18,19 and show that the results from both one- and two-dimensional codes agree with numerical simulations that use a simple depolarizing error model. These experimental demonstrations provide a foundation for building a scalable fault-tolerant quantum computer with superconducting qubits., Repetition codes running many cycles of quantum error correction achieve exponential suppression of errors with increasing numbers of qubits.

The discovery of topological order has revolutionized the understanding of quantum matter in modern physics and provided the theoretical foundation for many quantum error correcting codes. Realizing topologically ordered states has proven to be extremely challenging in both condensed matter and synthetic quantum systems. Here, we prepare the ground state of the toric code Hamiltonian using an efficient quantum circuit on a superconducting quantum processor. We measure a topological entanglement entropy near the expected value of $\ln2$, and simulate anyon interferometry to extract the braiding statistics of the emergent excitations. Furthermore, we investigate key aspects of the surface code, including logical state injection and the decay of the non-local order parameter. Our results demonstrate the potential for quantum processors to provide key insights into topological quantum matter and quantum error correction., Comment: 6 pages 4 figures, plus supplementary materials

Quantum computing can become scalable through error correction, but logical error rates only decrease with system size when physical errors are sufficiently uncorrelated. During computation, unused high energy levels of the qubits can become excited, creating leakage states that are long-lived and mobile. Particularly for superconducting transmon qubits, this leakage opens a path to errors that are correlated in space and time. Here, we report a reset protocol that returns a qubit to the ground state from all relevant higher level states. We test its performance with the bit-flip stabilizer code, a simplified version of the surface code for quantum error correction. We investigate the accumulation and dynamics of leakage during error correction. Using this protocol, we find lower rates of logical errors and an improved scaling and stability of error suppression with increasing qubit number. This demonstration provides a key step on the path towards scalable quantum computing., Correlated errors coming from leakage out of the computational subspace are an obstacle to fault-tolerant superconducting circuits. Here, the authors use a multi-level reset protocol to improve the performances of a bit-flip error correcting code by reducing the magnitude of correlations.

A promising approach to study condensed-matter systems is to simulate them on an engineered quantum platform1–4. However, the accuracy needed to outperform classical methods has not been achieved so far. Here, using 18 superconducting qubits, we provide an experimental blueprint for an accurate condensed-matter simulator and demonstrate how to investigate fundamental electronic properties. We benchmark the underlying method by reconstructing the single-particle band structure of a one-dimensional wire. We demonstrate nearly complete mitigation of decoherence and readout errors, and measure the energy eigenvalues of this wire with an error of approximately 0.01 rad, whereas typical energy scales are of the order of 1 rad. Insight into the fidelity of this algorithm is gained by highlighting the robust properties of a Fourier transform, including the ability to resolve eigenenergies with a statistical uncertainty of 10−4 rad. We also synthesize magnetic flux and disordered local potentials, which are two key tenets of a condensed-matter system. When sweeping the magnetic flux we observe avoided level crossings in the spectrum, providing a detailed fingerprint of the spatial distribution of local disorder. By combining these methods we reconstruct electronic properties of the eigenstates, observing persistent currents and a strong suppression of conductance with added disorder. Our work describes an accurate method for quantum simulation5,6 and paves the way to study new quantum materials with superconducting qubits. As a blueprint for high-precision quantum simulation, an 18-qubit algorithm that consists of more than 1,400 two-qubit gates is demonstrated, and reconstructs the energy eigenvalues of the simulated one-dimensional wire to a precision of 1 per cent.

Quantum algorithms offer a dramatic speedup for computational problems in machine learning, material science, and chemistry. However, any near-term realizations of these algorithms will need to be heavily optimized to fit within the finite resources offered by existing noisy quantum hardware. Here, taking advantage of the strong adjustable coupling of gmon qubits, we demonstrate a continuous two-qubit gate set that can provide a 3x reduction in circuit depth as compared to a standard decomposition. We implement two gate families: an iSWAP-like gate to attain an arbitrary swap angle, $\theta$, and a CPHASE gate that generates an arbitrary conditional phase, $\phi$. Using one of each of these gates, we can perform an arbitrary two-qubit gate within the excitation-preserving subspace allowing for a complete implementation of the so-called Fermionic Simulation, or fSim, gate set. We benchmark the fidelity of the iSWAP-like and CPHASE gate families as well as 525 other fSim gates spread evenly across the entire fSim($\theta$, $\phi$) parameter space achieving purity-limited average two-qubit Pauli error of $3.8 \times 10^{-3}$ per fSim gate., Comment: 20 pages, 17 figures

While quantum processors are typically cooled to $\lt 25$ mK to avoid thermal disturbances to their delicate quantum states, all qubits still suffer decoherence and gate errors. As such, quantum error correction is needed to fully harness the power of quantum computing (QC). Current projections indicate that $\gt 1,000$ physical qubits will be required to encode one error-corrected qubit [1]. Implementing a system with 1,000 error-corrected qubits will likely require moving from the contemporary paradigm where control and readout of the quantum processor is carried out using racks of room temperature electronics to one in which integrated control/readout circuits are located within the cryogenic environment and connected to the quantum processor through superconducting interconnects [2]. This is a major challenge, as the cryo ICs must be high performance and very low power (eventually $\lt 1$ mW/qubit). In this paper, we report the design and system-level characterization of a prototype cryo-CMOS IC for performing XY gate operations on transmon (XMON) qubits.

The promise of quantum computers is that certain computational tasks might be executed exponentially faster on a quantum processor than on a classical processor1. A fundamental challenge is to build a high-fidelity processor capable of running quantum algorithms in an exponentially large computational space. Here we report the use of a processor with programmable superconducting qubits to create quantum states on 53 qubits, corresponding to a computational state-space of dimension 2^53 (about 10^16). Measurements from repeated experiments sample the resulting probability distribution, which we verify using classical simulations. Our Sycamore processor takes about 200 seconds to sample one instance of a quantum circuit a million times—our benchmarks currently indicate that the equivalent task for a state-of-the-art classical supercomputer would take approximately 10,000 years. This dramatic increase in speed compared to all known classical algorithms is an experimental realization of quantum supremacy for this specific computational task, heralding a much-anticipated computing paradigm.

We demonstrate diabatic two-qubit gates with Pauli error rates down to $4.3(2)\cdot 10^{-3}$ in as fast as 18 ns using frequency-tunable superconducting qubits. This is achieved by synchronizing the entangling parameters with minima in the leakage channel. The synchronization shows a landscape in gate parameter space that agrees with model predictions and facilitates robust tune-up. We test both iSWAP-like and CPHASE gates with cross-entropy benchmarking. The presented approach can be extended to multibody operations as well., Comment: Main text: 6 pages, 4 figures. Supplementary: 2 pages, 2 figures

A major challenge in quantum computing is to solve general problems with limited physical hardware. Here, we implement digitized adiabatic quantum computing, combining the generality of the adiabatic algorithm with the universality of the digital approach, using a superconducting circuit with nine qubits. We probe the adiabatic evolutions, and quantify the success of the algorithm for random spin problems. We find that the system can approximate the solutions to both frustrated Ising problems and problems with more complex interactions, with a performance that is comparable. The presented approach is compatible with small-scale systems as well as future error-corrected quantum computers., Comment: Main text: 7 pages, 5 figures. Supplementary: 12 pages, 9 figures

Superconducting qubits are an attractive platform for quantum computing since they have demonstrated high-fidelity quantum gates and extensibility to modest system sizes. Nonetheless, an outstanding challenge is stabilizing their energy-relaxation times, which can fluctuate unpredictably in frequency and time. Here, we use qubits as spectral and temporal probes of individual two-level-system defects to provide direct evidence that they are responsible for the largest fluctuations. This research lays the foundation for stabilizing qubit performance through calibration, design, and fabrication., 7 main pages, 3 main figures, 5 supplemental pages, 5 supplemental figures

We develop a high speed on-chip flux measurement using a capacitively shunted SQUID as an embedded cryogenic transducer and apply this technique to the qualification of a near-term scalable printed circuit board (PCB) package for frequency tunable superconducting qubits. The transducer is a flux tunable LC resonator where applied flux changes the resonant frequency. We apply a microwave tone to probe this frequency and use a time-domain homodyne measurement to extract the reflected phase as a function of flux applied to the SQUID. The transducer response bandwidth is 2.6 GHz with a maximum gain of $\rm 1200^\circ/\Phi_0$ allowing us to study the settling amplitude to better than 0.1%. We use this technique to characterize on-chip bias line routing and a variety of PCB based packages and demonstrate that step response settling can vary by orders of magnitude in both settling time and amplitude depending on if normal or superconducting materials are used. By plating copper PCBs in aluminum we measure a step response consistent with the packaging used for existing high-fidelity qubits.

An ideal preamplifier for qubit measurement must not only provide high gain and near quantum-limited noise performance, but also isolate the delicate quantum circuit from noisy downstream measurement stages while producing negligible backaction. Here we use a Superconducting Low-inductance Undulatory Galvanometer (SLUG) microwave amplifier to read out a superconducting transmon qubit, and we characterize both reverse isolation and measurement backaction of the SLUG. For appropriate dc bias, the SLUG achieves reverse isolation that is better than that of a commercial cryogenic isolator. Moreover, SLUG backaction is dominated by thermal emission from dissipative elements in the device. When the SLUG is operated in pulsed mode, it is possible to characterize the transmon qubit using a measurement chain that is free from cryogenic isolators or circulators with no measurable degradation of qubit performance., 5 pages, 4 figures

Josephson junctions form the essential non-linearity for almost all superconducting qubits. The junction is formed when two superconducting electrodes come within $\sim$1 nm of each other. Although the capacitance of these electrodes is a small fraction of the total qubit capacitance, the nearby electric fields are more concentrated in dielectric surfaces and can contribute substantially to the total dissipation. We have developed a technique to experimentally investigate the effect of these electrodes on the quality of superconducting devices. We use $\lambda$/4 coplanar waveguide resonators to emulate lumped qubit capacitors. We add a variable number of these electrodes to the capacitive end of these resonators and measure how the additional loss scales with number of electrodes. We then reduce this loss with fabrication techniques that limit the amount of lossy dielectrics. We then apply these techniques to the fabrication of Xmon qubits on a silicon substrate to improve their energy relaxation times by a factor of 5.

A quantum computer can solve hard problems, such as prime factoring, database searching and quantum simulation, at the cost of needing to protect fragile quantum states from error. Quantum error correction provides this protection by distributing a logical state among many physical quantum bits (qubits) by means of quantum entanglement. Superconductivity is a useful phenomenon in this regard, because it allows the construction of large quantum circuits and is compatible with microfabrication. For superconducting qubits, the surface code approach to quantum computing is a natural choice for error correction, because it uses only nearest-neighbour coupling and rapidly cycled entangling gates. The gate fidelity requirements are modest: the per-step fidelity threshold is only about 99 per cent. Here we demonstrate a universal set of logic gates in a superconducting multi-qubit processor, achieving an average single-qubit gate fidelity of 99.92 per cent and a two-qubit gate fidelity of up to 99.4 per cent. This places Josephson quantum computing at the fault-tolerance threshold for surface code error correction. Our quantum processor is a first step towards the surface code, using five qubits arranged in a linear array with nearest-neighbour coupling. As a further demonstration, we construct a five-qubit Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger state using the complete circuit and full set of gates. The results demonstrate that Josephson quantum computing is a high-fidelity technology, with a clear path to scaling up to large-scale, fault-tolerant quantum circuits. © 2014 Macmillan Publishers Limited.

Many superconducting qubit systems use the dispersive interaction between the qubit and a coupled harmonic resonator to perform quantum state measurement. Previous works have found that such measurements can induce state transitions in the qubit if the number of photons in the resonator is too high. We investigate these transitions and find that they can push the qubit out of the two-level subspace, and that they show resonant behavior as a function of photon number. We develop a theory for these observations based on level crossings within the Jaynes-Cummings ladder, with transitions mediated by terms in the Hamiltonian that are typically ignored by the rotating wave approximation. We find that the most important of these terms comes from an unexpected broken symmetry in the qubit potential. We confirm the theory by measuring the photon occupation of the resonator when transitions occur while varying the detuning between the qubit and resonator.

© 2016 Macmillan Publishers Limited. All rights reserved. Statistical mechanics is founded on the assumption that all accessible configurations of a system are equally likely. This requires dynamics that explore all states over time, known as ergodic dynamics. In isolated quantum systems, however, the occurrence of ergodic behaviour has remained an outstanding question. Here, we demonstrate ergodic dynamics in a small quantum system consisting of only three superconducting qubits. The qubits undergo a sequence of rotations and interactions and we measure the evolution of the density matrix. Maps of the entanglement entropy show that the full system can act like a reservoir for individual qubits, increasing their entropy through entanglement. Surprisingly, these maps bear a strong resemblance to the phase space dynamics in the classical limit; classically, chaotic motion coincides with higher entanglement entropy. We further show that in regions of high entropy the full multi-qubit system undergoes ergodic dynamics. Our work illustrates how controllable quantum systems can investigate fundamental questions in non-equilibrium thermodynamics.

We report the first electronic structure calculation performed on a quantum computer without exponentially costly precompilation. We use a programmable array of superconducting qubits to compute the energy surface of molecular hydrogen using two distinct quantum algorithms. First, we experimentally execute the unitary coupled cluster method using the variational quantum eigensolver. Our efficient implementation predicts the correct dissociation energy to within chemical accuracy of the numerically exact result. Second, we experimentally demonstrate the canonical quantum algorithm for chemistry, which consists of Trotterization and quantum phase estimation. We compare the experimental performance of these approaches to show clear evidence that the variational quantum eigensolver is robust to certain errors. This error tolerance inspires hope that variational quantum simulations of classically intractable molecules may be viable in the near future., Comment: 13 pages, 7 figures. This revision is to correct an error in the coefficients of identity in Table 1

The intriguing many-body phases of quantum matter arise from the interplay of particle interactions, spatial symmetries, and external fields. Generating these phases in an engineered system could provide deeper insight into their nature and the potential for harnessing their unique properties. However, concurrently bringing together the main ingredients for realizing many-body phenomena in a single experimental platform is a major challenge. Using superconducting qubits, we simultaneously realize synthetic magnetic fields and strong particle interactions, which are among the essential elements for studying quantum magnetism and fractional quantum Hall (FQH) phenomena. The artificial magnetic fields are synthesized by sinusoidally modulating the qubit couplings. In a closed loop formed by the three qubits, we observe the directional circulation of photons, a signature of broken time-reversal symmetry. We demonstrate strong interactions via the creation of photon-vacancies, or "holes", which circulate in the opposite direction. The combination of these key elements results in chiral groundstate currents, the first direct measurement of persistent currents in low-lying eigenstates of strongly interacting bosons. The observation of chiral currents at such a small scale is interesting and suggests that the rich many-body physics could survive to smaller scales. We also motivate the feasibility of creating FQH states with near future superconducting technologies. Our work introduces an experimental platform for engineering quantum phases of strongly interacting photons and highlight a path toward realization of bosonic FQH states., in Nature Physics (2016)

Weak measurement has provided new insight into the nature of quantum measurement, by demonstrating the ability to extract average state information without fully projecting the system. For single-qubit measurements, this partial projection has been demonstrated with violations of the Leggett–Garg inequality. Here we investigate the effects of weak measurement on a maximally entangled Bell state through application of the Hybrid Bell–Leggett–Garg inequality (BLGI) on a linear chain of four transmon qubits. By correlating the results of weak ancilla measurements with subsequent projective readout, we achieve a violation of the BLGI with 27 s.d.s. of certainty. Scientists in the US have developed a method to evaluate the properties of complex quantum states without causing their destruction. A team at the University of California Santa Barbara led by John Martinis verified that the properties of entangled quantum states can be probed using weak measurements. By extracting only small parts of quantum information in a single measurement, weak measurements avoid the problem whereby quantum states are destroyed when the information contained in them is measured. Although this has been successfully demonstrated for single quantum states, it remained unclear if weak measurements were compatible with more complicated entangled systems. By implementing an experimental test that verifies with high accuracy the preservation of those entangled states in measurements, the researchers have made it possible to probe the properties of qubits in complex quantum computing schemes.

By analyzing the dissipative dynamics of a tunable gap flux qubit, we extract both sides of its two-sided environmental flux noise spectral density over a range of frequencies around $2k_BT/h \approx 1\,\rm{GHz}$, allowing for the observation of a classical-quantum crossover. Below the crossover point, the symmetric noise component follows a $1/f$ power law that matches the magnitude of the $1/f$ noise near $1\,{\rm{Hz}}$. The antisymmetric component displays a 1/T dependence below $100\,\rm{mK}$, providing dynamical evidence for a paramagnetic environment. Extrapolating the two-sided spectrum predicts the linewidth and reorganization energy of incoherent resonant tunneling between flux qubit wells., Comment: paper + supplement

Complex integrated circuits require multiple wiring layers. In complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor processing, these layers are robustly separated by amorphous dielectrics. These dielectrics would dominate energy loss in superconducting integrated circuits. Here, we describe a procedure that capitalizes on the structural benefits of inter-layer dielectrics during fabrication and mitigates the added loss. We use a deposited inter-layer dielectric throughout fabrication and then etch it away post-fabrication. This technique is compatible with foundry level processing and can be generalized to make many different forms of low-loss wiring. We use this technique to create freestanding aluminum vacuum gap crossovers (airbridges). We characterize the added capacitive loss of these airbridges by connecting ground planes over microwave frequency λ/4 coplanar waveguide resonators and measuring resonator loss. We measure a low power resonator loss of ∼3.9 × 10−8 per bridge, which is 100 times lower than that of dielectric supported bridges. We further characterize these airbridges as crossovers, control line jumpers, and as part of a coupling network in gmon and fluxmon qubits. We measure qubit characteristic lifetimes (T1s) in excess of 30 μs in gmon devices.

We present a fabrication process for fully superconducting interconnects compatible with superconducting qubit technology. These interconnects allow for the three dimensional integration of quantum circuits without introducing lossy amorphous dielectrics. They are composed of indium bumps several microns tall separated from an aluminum base layer by titanium nitride which serves as a diffusion barrier. We measure the whole structure to be superconducting (transition temperature of 1.1 K), limited by the aluminum. These interconnects have an average critical current of 26.8 mA, and mechanical shear and thermal cycle testing indicate that these devices are mechanically robust. Our process provides a method that reliably yields superconducting interconnects suitable for use with superconducting qubits.

We present measurements of the frequency noise and resonance frequency temperature dependence in planar superconducting resonators on both silicon and sapphire substrates. We show, by covering the resonators with sputtered SiOx layers of different thicknesses, that the temperature dependence of the resonance frequency scales linearly with thickness, whereas the observed increase in noise is independent of thickness. The frequency noise decreases when increasing the width of the coplanar waveguide in NbTiN on hydrogen passivated silicon devices, most effectively by widening the gap. We find up to an order of magnitude more noise when using sapphire instead of silicon as substrate. The complete set of data points towards the noise being strongly affected by superconductor-dielectric interfaces.

Kinetic inductance detectors are based upon high Q superconducting resonators. We have measured the electrical Noise Equivalent Power (NEP) of 100 nm thick 1/4λ coplanar waveguide Aluminum resonators at 100 mK using phase readout and radius readout. We find that the phase NEP is independent of the Q factor of the resonator, limited by excess noise in the KID and given by NEP ${}=9\times 10^{-18}\ \mbox{W}/\sqrt{\mathrm{Hz}}$ at 100 Hz. It increases with roughly f −0.5 at lower frequencies. The amplitude NEP is strongly Q factor dependent, limited by the setup noise, nearly frequency independent and as low as NEP ${}=3\times10^{-18}\ \mathrm{W}/\sqrt{\mathrm{Hz}}$ for a high Q resonator (Q=454.000). For lower Q resonators the amplitude NEP increases to values equal to or even larger than the phase readout.

We present measurements of the quasiparticle lifetime using optical pulses in the temperature range of 50 mK–1 K as well as measurements of the noise spectrum under continuous illumination in planar tantalum resonators. When decreasing the temperature the quasiparticle lifetime increases until it enters a saturation regime, reaching lifetime values of up to 35 μs at around 650 mK which decrease to a value of around 25 μs below a temperature of 350 mK. The noise spectrum follows a single pole Lorentzian spectrum, indicating that the quasiparticle lifetime is the only relevant timescale.

We highlight the progress on NbN hot electron bolometer (HEB) mixers achieved through fruitful collaboration between SRON Netherlands Institute for Space Research and Delft University of Technology, the Netherlands. This includes the best receiver noise temperatures of 700 K at 1.63 THz using a twin-slot antenna mixer and 1050 K at 2.84 THz using a spiral antenna coupled HEB mixer. The mixers are based on thin NbN films on Si and fabricated with a new contact-process and-structure. By reducing their areas HEB mixers have shown an LO power requirement as low as 30 nW. Those small HEB mixers have demonstrated equivalent sensitivity as those with large areas provided the direct detection effect due to broadband radiation is removed. To manifest that a HEB based heterodyne receiver can in practice be used at arbitrary frequencies above 2 THz, we demonstrate a 2.8 THz receiver using a THz quantum cascade laser (QCL) as local oscillator.

Bolometer mixers based on ultrathin NbN films find their applications in far infrared heterodyne detection. They consist of a microbridge, which is brought to its transition temperature by radiation and current. It was recently proposed that the resistivity increase should be understood in terms of vortex-antivortex unbinding as described in the Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless theory, although finite size effects, material properties, granularity and pinning will complicate a description of real devices. We have measured, close to the transition temperature, the current-voltage characteristics of a variety of NbN film samples, sputtered on a silicon substrate. Four terminal measurements of patterned films with different sizes are analyzed. We report the effect of the geometrical size on the logarithmic dependence of the voltage on the current. Results will be related to the properties of the NbN bolometric mixers.

We have measured the quality factors and phase noise of niobium and tantalum coplanar waveguide microwave resonators on silicon. The results of both materials are similar. We reach quality factors up to 105. At low temperatures the quality factors show an anomalous increase, while the resonance frequency remains constant for increasing power levels. The resonance frequency starts to decrease at temperatures around a tenth of the critical temperature. The phase noise exhibits a 1/f like slope. We attribute this behavior to the silicon dielectric.

One of the greatest challenges in the development of future space based instruments for sub-mm astronomy is the fabrication of very sensitive and large detector arrays. Within this context we have started the development of Microwave Kinetic Inductance Detectors (MKID’s). The heart of each detector consists of a high-Q superconducting quarter wavelength microwave resonator. As a result it is easy to multiplex the readout by frequency division multiplexing. The predicted fundamental sensitivity limit of the MKID is due to quasiparticle creation-recombination noise, leading to a NEP ∼ 1 × 10 - 20 W / Hz , low enough for any envisionable application in the sub-mm, optical and X-ray wavelength ranges. We describe experiments with these resonators, made of 150 nm Ta films with a 5 nm Nb seed layer on high purity Si substrates with a resonance frequency around 3 GHz. We measure the Q factors, responsivity, noise and noise equivalent power of several resonators. We find Q factors in excess of 1 × 105, high enough for the multiplexing of more than 104 pixels. The quasiparticle lifetime in our film is measured to be 25 μs. which gives, together with the measured phase noise, a NEP of ∼ 4 × 10 - 16 W / Hz at 1 kHz. At lower frequencies the noise increases.

Leakage errors occur when a quantum system leaves the two-level qubit subspace. Reducing these errors is critically important for quantum error correction to be viable. To quantify leakage errors, we use randomized benchmarking in conjunction with measurement of the leakage population. We characterize single qubit gates in a superconducting qubit, and by refining our use of Derivative Reduction by Adiabatic Gate (DRAG) pulse shaping along with detuning of the pulses, we obtain gate errors consistently below $10^{-3}$ and leakage rates at the $10^{-5}$ level. With the control optimized, we find that a significant portion of the remaining leakage is due to incoherent heating of the qubit., 10 pages, 10 figures including supplement; fixed typos in metadata

A precise measurement of dephasing over a range of timescales is critical for improving quantum gates beyond the error correction threshold. We present a metrological tool, based on randomized benchmarking, capable of greatly increasing the precision of Ramsey and spin echo sequences by the repeated but incoherent addition of phase noise. We find our SQUID-based qubit is not limited by $1/f$ flux noise at short timescales, but instead observe a telegraph noise mechanism that is not amenable to study with standard measurement techniques., 11 pages, 7 figures

Simulating quantum physics with a device which itself is quantum mechanical, a notion Richard Feynman originated, would be an unparallelled computational resource. However, the universal quantum simulation of fermionic systems is daunting due to their particle statistics, and Feynman left as an open question whether it could be done, because of the need for non-local control. Here, we implement fermionic interactions with digital techniques in a superconducting circuit. Focusing on the Hubbard model, we perform time evolution with constant interactions as well as a dynamic phase transition with up to four fermionic modes encoded in four qubits. The implemented digital approach is universal and allows for the efficient simulation of fermions in arbitrary spatial dimensions. We use in excess of 300 single-qubit and two-qubit gates, and reach global fidelities which are limited by gate errors. This demonstration highlights the feasibility of the digital approach and opens a viable route towards analog-digital quantum simulation of interacting fermions and bosons in large-scale solid state systems., Main text: 5 pages, 5 figures. Supplementary: 7 pages, 6 figures

We apply the method of compressed sensing (CS) quantum process tomography (QPT) to characterize quantum gates based on superconducting Xmon and phase qubits. Using experimental data for a two-qubit controlled-Z gate, we obtain an estimate for the process matrix $\chi$ with reasonably high fidelity compared to full QPT, but using a significantly reduced set of initial states and measurement configurations. We show that the CS method still works when the amount of used data is so small that the standard QPT would have an underdetermined system of equations. We also apply the CS method to the analysis of the three-qubit Toffoli gate with numerically added noise, and similarly show that the method works well for a substantially reduced set of data. For the CS calculations we use two different bases in which the process matrix $\chi$ is approximately sparse, and show that the resulting estimates of the process matrices match each ther with reasonably high fidelity. For both two-qubit and three-qubit gates, we characterize the quantum process by not only its process matrix and fidelity, but also by the corresponding standard deviation, defined via variation of the state fidelity for different initial states., Comment: 16 pages, 11 figures

One of the key challenges in quantum information is coherently manipulating the quantum state. However, it is an outstanding question whether control can be realized with low error. Only gates from the Clifford group -- containing $\pi$, $\pi/2$, and Hadamard gates -- have been characterized with high accuracy. Here, we show how the Platonic solids enable implementing and characterizing larger gate sets. We find that all gates can be implemented with low error. The results fundamentally imply arbitrary manipulation of the quantum state can be realized with high precision, providing new practical possibilities for designing efficient quantum algorithms., Comment: 8 pages, 4 figures, including supplementary material

Topology, with its abstract mathematical constructs, often manifests itself in physics and has a pivotal role in our understanding of natural phenomena. Notably, the discovery of topological phases in condensed-matter systems has changed the modern conception of phases of matter. The global nature of topological ordering, however, makes direct experimental probing an outstanding challenge. Present experimental tools are mainly indirect and, as a result, are inadequate for studying the topology of physical systems at a fundamental level. Here we employ the exquisite control afforded by state-of-the-art superconducting quantum circuits to investigate topological properties of various quantum systems. The essence of our approach is to infer geometric curvature by measuring the deflection of quantum trajectories in the curved space of the Hamiltonian. Topological properties are then revealed by integrating the curvature over closed surfaces, a quantum analogue of the Gauss-Bonnet theorem. We benchmark our technique by investigating basic topological concepts of the historically important Haldane model after mapping the momentum space of this condensed-matter model to the parameter space of a single-qubit Hamiltonian. In addition to constructing the topological phase diagram, we are able to visualize the microscopic spin texture of the associated states and their evolution across a topological phase transition. Going beyond non-interacting systems, we demonstrate the power of our method by studying topology in an interacting quantum system. This required a new qubit architecture that allows for simultaneous control over every term in a two-qubit Hamiltonian. By exploring the parameter space of this Hamiltonian, we discover the emergence of an interaction-induced topological phase. Our work establishes a powerful, generalizable experimental platform to study topological phenomena in quantum systems.

We present a method for optimizing quantum control in experimental systems, using a subset of randomized benchmarking measurements to rapidly infer error. This is demonstrated to improve single- and two-qubit gates, minimize gate bleedthrough, where a gate mechanism can cause errors on subsequent gates, and identify control crosstalk in superconducting qubits. This method is able to correct parameters to where control errors no longer dominate, and is suitable for automated and closed-loop optimization of experimental systems., Comment: 7 pages, 7 figures including supplementary

(Received 15 November 2013; revised manuscript received 24 January 2014; published 28 May 2014) We demonstrate a high-efficiency deterministic quantum receiver to convert flying qubits to stationary qubits. We employ a superconducting resonator, which is driven with a shaped pulse through an adjustable coupler. For the ideal “time-reversed” shape, we measure absorption and receiver fidelities at the single microwave photon level of, respectively, 99.41% and 97.4%. These fidelities are comparablewith gates and measurement and exceed the deterministic quantum communication and computation fault-tolerant thresholds, enabling new designs of deterministic qubit interconnects and hybrid quantum computers.

Quantum interference is one of the most fundamental physical effects found in nature. Recent advances in quantum computing now employ interference as a fundamental resource for computation and control. Quantum interference also lies at the heart of sophisticated condensed matter phenomena such as Anderson localization, phenomena that are difficult to reproduce in numerical simulations. Here, employing a multiple-element superconducting quantum circuit, with which we manipulate a single microwave photon, we demonstrate that we can emulate the basic effects of weak localization. By engineering the control sequence, we are able to reproduce the well-known negative magnetoresistance of weak localization as well as its temperature dependence. Furthermore, we can use our circuit to continuously tune the level of disorder, a parameter that is not readily accessible in mesoscopic systems. Demonstrating a high level of control, our experiment shows the potential for employing superconducting quantum circuits as emulators for complex quantum phenomena.

We introduce a superconducting qubit architecture that combines high-coherence qubits and tunable qubit-qubit coupling. With the ability to set the coupling to zero, we demonstrate that this architecture is protected from the frequency crowding problems that arise from fixed coupling. More importantly, the coupling can be tuned dynamically with nanosecond resolution, making this architecture a versatile platform with applications ranging from quantum logic gates to quantum simulation. We illustrate the advantages of dynamical coupling by implementing a novel adiabatic controlled-z gate, with a speed approaching that of single-qubit gates. Integrating coherence and scalable control, the introduced qubit architecture provides a promising path towards large-scale quantum computation and simulation.

We present a lumped-element Josephson parametric amplifier designed to operate with strong coupling to the environment. In this regime, we observe broadband frequency dependent amplification with multi-peaked gain profiles. We account for this behaviour using the "pumpistor" model which allows for frequency dependent variation of the external impedance. Using this understanding, we demonstrate control over gain profiles through changes in the environment impedance at a given frequency. With strong coupling to a suitable external impedance we observe a significant increase in dynamic range, and large amplification bandwidth up to 700 MHz giving near quantum-limited performance.

Quantum computing becomes viable when a quantum state can be preserved from environmentally-induced error. If quantum bits (qubits) are sufficiently reliable, errors are sparse and quantum error correction (QEC) is capable of identifying and correcting them. Adding more qubits improves the preservation by guaranteeing increasingly larger clusters of errors will not cause logical failure - a key requirement for large-scale systems. Using QEC to extend the qubit lifetime remains one of the outstanding experimental challenges in quantum computing. Here, we report the protection of classical states from environmental bit-flip errors and demonstrate the suppression of these errors with increasing system size. We use a linear array of nine qubits, which is a natural precursor of the two-dimensional surface code QEC scheme, and track errors as they occur by repeatedly performing projective quantum non-demolition (QND) parity measurements. Relative to a single physical qubit, we reduce the failure rate in retrieving an input state by a factor of 2.7 for five qubits and a factor of 8.5 for nine qubits after eight cycles. Additionally, we tomographically verify preservation of the non-classical Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger (GHZ) state. The successful suppression of environmentally-induced errors strongly motivates further research into the many exciting challenges associated with building a large-scale superconducting quantum computer., Comment: Main text 5 pages, 4 figures. Supplemental 25 pages, 31 figures

Many superconducting qubits are highly sensitive to dielectric loss, making the fabrication of coherent quantum circuits challenging. To elucidate this issue, we characterize the interfaces and surfaces of superconducting coplanar waveguide resonators and study the associated microwave loss. We show that contamination induced by traditional qubit lift-off processing is particularly detrimental to quality factors without proper substrate cleaning, while roughness plays at most a small role. Aggressive surface treatment is shown to damage the crystalline substrate and degrade resonator quality. We also introduce methods to characterize and remove ultra-thin resist residue, providing a way to quantify and minimize remnant sources of loss on device surfaces.

Faster and more accurate state measurement is required for progress in superconducting qubit experiments with greater numbers of qubits and advanced techniques such as feedback. We have designed a multiplexed measurement system with a bandpass filter that allows fast measurement without increasing environmental damping of the qubits. We use this to demonstrate simultaneous measurement of four qubits on a single superconducting integrated circuit, the fastest of which can be measured to 99.8% accuracy in 140 ns. This accuracy and speed is suitable for advanced multiqubit experiments including surface-code error correction.