Wiring surface loss of a superconducting transmon qubit

Quantum processors using superconducting qubits suffer from dielectric loss leading to noise and dissipation. Qubits are usually designed as large capacitor pads connected to a non-linear Josephson junction (or SQUID) by a superconducting thin metal wiring. Here, we report on finite-element simulation and experimental results confirming that more than 50% of surface loss in transmon qubits can originated from Josephson junctions wiring and can limit qubit relaxation time. Extracting dielectric loss tangents capacitor pads and wiring based on their participation ratios, we show dominant surface loss of wiring can occur for real qubits designs. Then, we simulate a qubit coupled to a bath of individual TLS defects and show that only a small fraction (~18%) of coupled defects is located within the wiring interfaces, however, their coupling strength is much higher due to stronger electromagnetic field. Finally, we fabricate six tunable floating transmon qubits and experimentally demonstrate up to 20% improvement in qubit quality factor by wiring design optimization.Comment: 17 pages, 8 figure

Sputtered NbN Films for Ultrahigh Performance Superconducting Nanowire Single-Photon Detectors

Nowadays ultrahigh performance superconducting nanowire single-photon detectors are the key elements in a variety of devices from biological research to quantum communications and computing. Accurate tuning of superconducting material properties is a powerful resource for fabricating single-photon detectors with a desired properties. Here, we report on the major theoretical relations between ultrathin niobium nitride (NbN) films properties and superconducting nanowire single-photon detectors characteristics, as well as ultrathin NbN films properties dependence on reactive magnetron sputtering recipes. Based on this study we formulate the exact requirements to ultrathin NbN films for ultrahigh performance superconducting nanowire single-photon detectors. Then, we experimentally study ultrathin NbN films properties (morphology, crystalline structure, critical temperature, sheet resistance) on silicon, sapphire, silicon dioxide and silicon nitride substrates sputtered with various recipes. We demonstrate ultrathin NbN films (obtained with more than 100 films deposition) with a wide range of critical temperature from 2.5 to 12.1 K and sheet resistance from 285 to 2000 ~$\Omega$/sq, as well as investigate a sheet resistance evolution over for more than 40\% within two years. Finally, we found out that one should use ultrathin NbN films with specific critical temperature near 9 K and sheet resistance of 400 ~$\Omega$/sq for ultrahigh performance SNSPD.Comment: The following article has been submitted to APL Materials. After it is published, it will be found at https://pubs.aip.org/aip/apm. Copyright 2023 Author(s). This article is distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) Licens

Ultrabright room-temperature single-photon emission from nanodiamond nitrogen-vacancy centers with sub-nanosecond excited-state lifetime

Ultrafast emission rates obtained from quantum emitters coupled to plasmonic nanoantennas have recently opened fundamentally new possibilities in quantum information and sensing applications. Plasmonic nanoantennas greatly improve the brightness of quantum emitters by dramatically shortening their fluorescence lifetimes. Gap plasmonic nanocavities that support strongly confined modes are of particular interest for such applications. We demonstrate single-photon emission from nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centers in nanodiamonds coupled to nanosized gap plasmonic cavities with internal mode volumes about 10 000 times smaller than the cubic vacuum wavelength. The resulting structures features sub-nanosecond NV excited-state lifetimes and detected photon rates up to 50 million counts per second. Analysis of the fluorescence saturation allows the extraction of the multi-order excitation rate enhancement provided by the nanoantenna. Efficiency analysis shows that the NV center is producing up to 0.25 billion photons per second in the far-field

Cavity-QED simulation of a quantum metamaterial with tunable disorder

We explore experimentally a quantum metamaterial based on a superconducting chip with 25 frequency-tunable transmon qubits coupled to a common coplanar resonator. The collective bright and dark modes are probed via the microwave response, i.e., by measuring the transmission amplitude of an external microwave signal. All qubits have individual control and readout lines. Their frequency tunability allows to change the number N of resonantly coupled qubits and also to introduce a disorder in their excitation frequencies with preassigned distributions. While increasing N, we demonstrate the expected N$^{1/2}$ scaling law for the energy gap (Rabi splitting) between bright modes around the cavity frequency. By introducing a controllable disorder and averaging the transmission amplitude over a large number of realizations, we demonstrate a decay of mesoscopic fluctuations which mimics an approach towards the thermodynamic limit. The collective bright states survive in the presence of disorder when the strength of individual qubit coupling to the cavity dominates over the disorder strength

Robust cryogenic matched low-pass coaxial filters for quantum computing applications

Electromagnetic noise is one of the key external factors decreasing superconducting qubits coherence. Matched coaxial filters can prevent microwave and IR photons negative influence on superconducting quantum circuits. Here, we report on design and fabrication route of matched low-pass coaxial filters for noise-sensitive measurements at milliKelvin temperatures. A robust transmission coefficient with designed linear absorption (-1dB/GHz) and ultralow reflection losses less than -20 dB up to 20 GHz is achieved. We present a mathematical model for evaluating and predicting filters transmission parameters depending on their dimensions. It is experimentally approved on two filters prototypes different lengths with compound of Cu powder and Stycast commercial resin demonstrating excellent matching. The presented design and assembly route are universal for various compounds and provide high repeatability of geometrical and microwave characteristics. Finally, we demonstrate three filters with almost equal reflection and transmission characteristics in the range from 0 to 20 GHz, which is quite useful to control multiple channel superconducting quantum circuits.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figure

Digital Design as a Key Approach to Shortening MEMS Development Cycle

A comparative analysis of new product development principles in microelectronics, mechanical engineering, and MEMS production is carried out. A MEMS integrated digital modeling approach is proposed based on the formation of a knowledge base, including a description of basic structural elements and basic tested process sequences for their manufacture