Increasing energy relaxation time of superconducting qubits with nonmagnetic infrared filter and shield**Project supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 91321310, 11274156, 11474152, 11474153, 61521001, and 11504165) and the State Key Program for Basic Research of China (Grant Nos. 2011CB922104 and 2011CBA00205).

Abstract

One of the primary origins of the energy relaxation in superconducting qubits is the quasiparticle loss. The quasiparticles can be excited remarkably by infrared radiation. In order to minimize the density of quasiparticle and increase the qubit relaxation time, we design and fabricate the infrared filter and shield for superconducting qubits. In comparison with previous filters and shields, a nonmagnetic dielectric is used as the infrared absorbing material, greatly suppressing the background magnetic fluctuations. The filters can be made to impedance-match with other microwave devices. Using the as-fabricated infrared filter and shield, we increased the relaxation time of a transmon qubit from 519 ns to 1125 ns.