Strain designed Josephson π-junction qubits with topological insulators

Abstract

A Josephson qubit is designed via the application of a tensile strain to a topological insulator surface sandwiched between two s-wave superconductors. The strain applied leads to a shift in the Dirac point without changing the pre-existing conducting states, on the surface of a topological insulator. The strain applied can be tuned to form a π-junction in such a structure. Combining two such junctions in a ring architecture leads to the ground state of the ring being in a doubly degenerate state —the “0” and “1” states of a qubit. A qubit designed this way is quite easily controlled via the tunable strain applied. We report on the conditions necessary to design such a qubit. Finally the operating time of a single-qubit phase gate is derived.