Josephson tunnel junctions with ferromagnetic interlayer

Superconductivity and ferromagnetism are well-known physical properties of solid states that have been widely studied and long thought about as antagonistic phenomena due to difference in spin ordering. It turns out that the combination of both superconductor and ferromagnet leads to a very rich and interesting physics. One particular example, the phase oscillations of the superconducting order parameter inside the ferromagnet, will play a major role for the devices discussed in this work. In this thesis, I present Josephson junctions with a thin Al2O3 tunnel barrier and a ferromagnetic interlayer, i.e. superconductor-insulator-ferromagnet-superconductor (SIFS) stacks. The fabrication of junctions was optimized regarding the insulation of electrodes and the homogeneity of the current transport. The junctions were either in the 0 or pi coupled ground state, depending on the thickness of the ferromagnetic layer and on temperature. The influence of ferromagnetic layer thickness on the transport properties and the coupling (0, pi) of SIFS tunnel junctions was studied. Furthermore, using a stepped ferromagnetic layer with well-chosen thicknesses, I obtained the so-called 0-pi Josephson junction. At a certain temperature this 0-pi junction can be made perfectly symmetric. In this case the ground state corresponds to a vortex of supercurrent creating a magnetic flux which is a fraction of the magnetic flux quantum Phi_0. Such structures allow to study the physics of fractional vortices and to build various electronic circuits based on them. The SIFS junctions presented here have an exponentially vanishing damping at T--> 0. The SIFS technology developed within the framework of this work may be used to construct classical and quantum devices such as oscillators, memory cells and qubits

Fabrication and Characterization of Short Josephson Junctions with Stepped Ferromagnetic Barrier

We present novel low-T_c superconductor-insulator-ferromagnet-superconductor (SIFS) Josephson junctions with planar and stepped ferromagnetic interlayer. We optimized the fabrication process to set a step in the ferromagnetic layer thickness. Depending on the thickness of the ferromagnetic layer the ground state of the SIFS junction has a phase drop of either 0 or pi. So-called 0-pi Josephson junctions, in which 0 and pi ground states compete with each other, were obtained. These stepped junctions may have a double degenerate ground state, corresponding to a vortex of supercurrent circulating clock- or counterclockwise and creating a magnetic flux which carries a fraction of the magnetic flux quantum \Phi_0. Here, we limit the presentation to static properties of short junctions.Comment: modified version, small change

Emulating the one-dimensional Fermi-Hubbard model by a double chain of qubits

The Jordan-Wigner transformation maps a one-dimensional (1D) spin- 1 / 2 system onto a fermionic model without spin degree of freedom. A double chain of quantum bits with X X and Z Z couplings of neighboring qubits along and between the chains, respectively, can be mapped on a spin-full 1D Fermi-Hubbard model. The qubit system can thus be used to emulate the quantum properties of this model. We analyze physical implementations of such analog quantum simulators, including one based on transmon qubits, where the Z Z interaction arises due to an inductive coupling and the X X interaction due to a capacitive interaction. We propose protocols to gain confidence in the results of the simulation through measurements of local operators

Transmon Qubit in a Magnetic Field: Evolution of Coherence and Transition Frequency

We report on spectroscopic and time-domain measurements on a fixed-frequency concentric transmon qubit in an applied in-plane magnetic field to explore its limits of magnetic field compatibility. We demonstrate quantum coherence of the qubit up to field values of $B={40}\,\mathrm{mT}$, even without an optimized chip design or material combination of the qubit. The dephasing rate $\Gamma_\varphi$ is shown to be not affected by the magnetic field in a broad range of the qubit transition frequency. For the evolution of the qubit transition frequency, we find the unintended second junction created in the shadow angle evaporation process to be non-negligible and deduce an analytic formula for the field-dependent qubit energies. We discuss the relevant field-dependent loss channels, which can not be distinguished by our measurements, inviting further theoretical and experimental investigation. Using well-known and well-studied standard components of the superconducting quantum architecture, we are able to reach a field regime relevant for quantum sensing and hybrid applications of magnetic spins and spin systems.Comment: 9 pages, 8 figure

T1T_1-Echo Sequence - Protecting the state of a qubit in the presence of coherent interaction

We propose a sequence of pulses intended to preserve the state of a qubit in the presence of strong, coherent coupling to another quantum system. The sequence can be understood as a generalized SWAP and works in formal analogy to the well-known spin echo. Since the resulting effective decoherence rate of the qubits state is strongly influenced by the additional system, this sequence might serve to protect its quantum state as well as negating the effects of the coherent coupling. A possible area of application are large scale quantum computing architectures, where spectral crowding of the resources might necessitate a method to mitigate residual couplings.Comment: 9 pages, 7 figures, as publishe

Identifying capacitive and inductive loss in lumped element superconducting hybrid titanium nitride/aluminum resonators

We present a method to systematically locate and extract capacitive and inductive losses in superconducting resonators at microwave frequencies by use of mixed-material, lumped element devices. In these devices, ultra-low loss titanium nitride was progressively replaced with aluminum in the inter-digitated capacitor and meandered inductor elements. By measuring the power dependent loss at 50 mK as the Al-TiN fraction in each element is increased, we find that at low electric field, i.e. in the single photon limit, the loss is two level system in nature and is correlated with the amount of Al capacitance rather than the Al inductance. In the high electric field limit, the remaining loss is linearly related to the product of the Al area times its inductance and is likely due to quasiparticles generated by stray radiation. At elevated temperature, additional loss is correlated with the amount of Al in the inductance, with a power independent TiN-Al interface loss term that exponentially decreases as the temperature is reduced. The TiN-Al interface loss is vanishingly small at the 50 mK base temperature.Comment: 10 pages, 5 figure

Complex temperature dependence of coupling and dissipation of cavity-magnon polaritons from milliKelvin to room temperature

Hybridized magnonic-photonic systems are key components for future information processing technologies such as storage, manipulation or conversion of data both in the classical (mostly at room temperature) and quantum (cryogenic) regime. In this work, we investigate a YIG sphere coupled strongly to a microwave cavity over the full temperature range from $290\,\mathrm{K}$ down to $30\,\mathrm{mK}$. The cavity-magnon polaritons are studied from the classical to the quantum regime where the thermal energy is less than one resonant microwave quanta, i.e. at temperatures below $1\,\mathrm{K}$. We compare the temperature dependence of the coupling strength $g_{\rm{eff}}(T)$, describing the strength of coherent energy exchange between spin ensemble and cavity photon, to the temperature behavior of the saturation magnetization evolution $M_{\rm{s}}(T)$ and find strong deviations at low temperatures. The temperature dependence of magnonic disspation is governed at intermediate temperatures by rare earth impurity scattering leading to a strong peak at $40\,$K. The linewidth $\kappa_{\rm{m}}$ decreases to $1.2\,$MHz at $30\,$mK, making this system suitable as a building block for quantum electrodynamics experiments. We achieve an electromagnonic cooperativity in excess of $20$ over the entire temperature range, with values beyond $100$ in the milliKelvin regime as well as at room temperature. With our measurements, spectroscopy on strongly coupled magnon-photon systems is demonstrated as versatile tool for spin material studies over large temperature ranges. Key parameters are provided in a single measurement, thus simplifying investigations significantly.Comment: 10 pages , 9 figures in tota

Quantum sensing with tunable superconducting qubits: optimization and speed-up

Sensing and metrology play an important role in fundamental science and applications by fulfilling the ever-present need for more precise data sets and by allowing researchers to make more reliable conclusions on the validity of theoretical models. Sensors are ubiquitous. They are used in applications across a diverse range of fields including gravity imaging, geology, navigation, security, timekeeping, spectroscopy, chemistry, magnetometry, healthcare, and medicine. Current progress in quantum technologies has inevitably triggered the exploration of the use of quantum systems as sensors with new and improved capabilities. This article describes the optimization of the quantum-enhanced sensing of external magnetic fluxes with a Kitaev phase estimation algorithm based on a sensor with tunable transmon qubits. It provides the optimal flux biasing point for sensors with different maximal qubit transition frequencies. An estimation of decoherence rates is made for a given design. The use of $2-$ and $3-$qubit entangled states for sensing are compared in simulation with the single qubit case. The flux sensing accuracy reaches $10^{-8}\cdot\Phi_0$ and scales with time as $\sim\ 1/t$ which proves the speed-up of sensing with high ultimate accuracy.Comment: 13 pages, 7 figures, 1 table. arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:2103.1102