No Arabic abstract
Frequency instability of superconducting resonators and qubits leads to dephasing and time-varying energy-loss and hinders quantum-processor tune-up. Its main source is dielectric noise originating in surface oxides. Thorough noise studies are needed in order to develop a comprehensive understanding and mitigation strategy of these fluctuations. Here we use a frequency-locked loop to track the resonant-frequency jitter of three different resonator types---one niobium-nitride superinductor, one aluminium coplanar waveguide, and one aluminium cavity---and we observe strikingly similar random-telegraph-signal fluctuations. At low microwave drive power, the resonators exhibit multiple, unstable frequency positions, which for increasing power coalesce into one frequency due to motional narrowing caused by sympathetic driving of individual two-level-system defects by the resonator. In all three devices we probe a dominant fluctuator, finding that its amplitude saturates with increasing drive power, but its characteristic switching rate follows the power-law dependence of quasiclassical Landau-Zener transitions.
A two-level system traversing a level anticrossing has a small probability to make a so-called Landau-Zener (LZ) transition between its energy bands, in deviation from simple adiabatic evolution. This effect takes on renewed relevance due to the observation of quantum coherence in superconducting qubits (macroscopic Schrodinger cat devices). We report an observation of LZ transitions in an Al three-junction qubit coupled to a Nb resonant tank circuit.
In quantum mechanics, the process of measurement is a subtle interplay between extraction of information and disturbance of the state of the quantum system. A quantum non-demolition (QND) measurement minimizes this disturbance by using a particular system - detector interaction which preserves the eigenstates of a suitable operator of the quantum system. This leads to an ideal projective measurement. We present experiments in which we perform two consecutive measurements on a quantum two -level system, a superconducting flux qubit, by probing the hysteretic behaviour of a coupled nonlinear resonator. The large correlation between the results of the two measurements demonstrates the QND nature of the readout method. The fact that a QND measurement is possible for superconducting qubits strengthens the notion that these fabricated mesoscopic systems are to be regarded as fundamental quantum objects. Our results are also relevant for quantum information processing, where projective measurements are used for protocols like state preparation and error correction.
Tunneling two level systems (TLS), present in dielectrics at low temperatures, have been recently studied for fundamental understanding and superconducting device development. According to a recent theory by Burin textit{et al.}, the TLS bath of any amorphous dielectric experiences a distribution of Landau-Zener transitions if exposed to simultaneous fields. In this experiment we measure amorphous insulating films at millikelvin temperatures with a microwave field and a swept electric field bias using a superconducting resonator. We find that the maximum dielectric loss per microwave photon with the simultaneous fields is approximately the same as that in the equilibrium state, in agreement with the generic material theory. In addition, we find that the loss depends on the fields in a way which allows for the separate extraction of the TLS bath dipole moment and density of states. This method allows for the study of the TLS dipole moment in a diverse set of disordered films, and provides a technique for continuously inverting their population.
We report on the design, fabrication and characterization of superconducting coplanar waveguide resonators with nanoscopic constrictions. By reducing the size of the center line down to 50 nm, the radio frequency currents are concentrated and the magnetic field in its vicinity is increased. The device characteristics are only slightly modified by the constrictions, with changes in resonance frequency lower than 1% and internal quality factors of the same order of magnitude as the original ones. These devices could enable the achievement of higher couplings to small magnetic samples or even to single molecular spins and have applications in circuit quantum electrodynamics, quantum computing and electron paramagnetic resonance.
Solid state devices for quantum bit computation (qubits) are not perfect isolated two-level systems, since additional higher energy levels always exist. One example is the Josephson flux qubit, which consists on a mesoscopic SQUID loop with three Josephson junctions operated at or near a magnetic flux of half quantum. We study intrinsic leakage effects, i.e., direct transitions from the allowed qubit states to higher excited states of the system during the application of pulses for quantum computation operations. The system is started in the ground state and rf- magnetic field pulses are applied at the qubit resonant frequency with pulse intensity $f_p$. A perturbative calculation of the average leakage for small $f_p$ is performed for this case, obtaining that the leakage is quadratic in $f_p$, and that it depends mainly on the matrix elements of the supercurrent. Numerical simulations of the time dependent Schrodinger equation corresponding to the full Hamiltonian of this device were also performed. From the simulations we obtain the value of $f_p$ above which the two-level approximation breaks down, and we estimate the maximum Rabi frequency that can be achieved. We study the leakage as a function of the ratio $alpha$ among the Josephson energies of the junctions of the device, obtaining the best value for minimum leakage ($alphaapprox0.85$). The effects of flux noise on the leakage are also discussed.