Fast Gate Research Articles

Characterization of tunable coupler without a dedicated readout resonator in superconducting circuits

Tunable couplers have recently emerged as an essential component in superconducting quantum processors. These couplers usually do not have readout resonators to save control or hardware overhead; this makes it challenging to characterize and calibrate the coupler, which will undoubtedly limit the performance of a fast two-qubit gate. Here, we theoretically demonstrate that by mapping the coupler's state onto that of its neighboring qubit, the high-contrast readout of the coupler can be realized. We experimentally implement such a readout scheme with a single-shot readout fidelity of 86%, which is mainly limited by the thermal population of our sample. We further demonstrate how to calibrate the flux crosstalk related to the coupler and its flux distortion that are ignored in the previous works. These calibration steps are imperative for realizing robust and accurate quantum operations in frequency-tunable superconducting circuits.

Research progress of superconductor and cold atoms hybrid quantum system

The hybrid quantum system composed of superconductor and cold atoms is expected to achieve fast quantum gates, long-life quantum storage and long-distance transmission through optical fibers, making it one of the most promising hybrid quantum systems to realize optical interconnection between two superconducting quantum computers. In this paper, we comprehensively review the recent research advancements in the optical interconnection of two superconducting quantum computers, based on the superconductor and cold atoms hybrid quantum system, specifically the review covers the coherent coupling between superconducting chips and cold atoms, the coherent microwave-to-optics conversion, and the long-range microwave interconnection between superconducting qubits and quantum converters. The system is expected to provide a physical and technical foundation for practical optical-fiber interconnection of two superconducting quantum computers, and have broad applications in distributed superconducting quantum computation and hybrid quantum networks.

Graphene Channel Electron-Multiplying Charge-Coupled Pixel

Traditional electron-multiplying charge-coupled devices suffer from slow readout and large power consumption because of the complex driving circuitry implemented for the square clocking to serially transfer the charge during the readout process. At the same time, the photo-generated carriers are also prone to pre-amplification losses. Owing to the electrostatic capacitive coupling of the tunable graphene channel with the silicon photogate, an in-situ transient photoresponse study of the single graphene-oxide-silicon heterostructure driven into pre-avalanche condition by a fast sinusoidal gating signal is presented. This technique paves the way for futuristic sinusoidally driven, graphene-based, out-of-plane electron-multiplication charge-coupled devices with specific low-power surveillance and adaptive optics applications. The operating scheme of the device demonstrates the excellent capability for sensing short and small bursts of photons (25 nW). The maximum multiplication factor of ~8.5 and responsivity of 350 A/W are achieved. The operating equipment limitations and their respective solutions are also discussed.

On the detailed structure of quantum control landscape for fast single qubit phase-shift gate generation

In this work, we study the detailed structure of quantum control landscape for the problem of single-qubit phase shift gate generation on the fast time scale. In previous works, the absence of traps for this problem was proved on various time scales. A special critical point which was known to exist in quantum control landscapes was shown to be either a saddle or a global extremum, depending on the parameters of the control system. However, in case of a saddle, the numbers of negative and positive eigenvalues of the Hessian at this point and their magnitudes have not been studied. At the same time, these numbers and magnitudes determine the relative ease or difficulty for practical optimization in a vicinity of the critical point. In this work, we compute the numbers of negative and positive eigenvalues of the Hessian at this saddle point and, moreover, give estimates on magnitude of these eigenvalues. We also significantly simplify our previous proof of the theorem about this saddle point of the Hessian (Theorem 3 in [22]).

On the detailed structure of quantum control landscape for fast single qubit phase-shift gate generation

In this work, we study the detailed structure of quantum control landscape for the problem of single-qubit phase shift gate generation on the fast time scale. In previous works, the absence of traps for this problem was proven on various time scales. A special critical point which was known to exist in quantum control landscapes was shown to be either a saddle or a global extremum, depending on the parameters of the control system. However, in the case of a saddle the numbers of negative and positive eigenvalues of the Hessian at this point and their magnitudes have not been studied. At the same time, these numbers and magnitudes determine the relative ease or difficulty for practical optimization in a vicinity of the critical point. In this work, we compute the numbers of negative and positive eigenvalues of the Hessian at this saddle point and, moreover, give estimates on magnitude of these eigenvalues. We also significantly simplify our previous proof of the theorem about this saddle point of the Hessian [Theorem 3 in B. O. Volkov, O. V. Morzhin, A. N. Pechen, J. Phys. A: Math. Theor. 54, 215303 (2021)]. Bibliography: 42 titles.

Generation of Perfectly Entangled Two and Three Qubits States by Classical Random Interaction

AbstractThis study examines the possibility of finding perfect entanglers for a Hamiltonian which corresponds to several quantum information platforms of interest at the present time. However, in this study, a superconducting circuit is used that stands out from other quantum‐computing devices, especially because transmon qubits can be coupled via capacitors or microwave cavities, which enables to combine high coherence, fast gates, and high flexibility in its design parameters. There are currently two factors limiting the performance of superconducting processors: timing mismatch and the limitation of entangling gates to two qubits. In this work, a two‐qubit SWAP and a three‐qubit Fredkin gate is presented, additionally, a perfect adiabatic entanglement generation between two and three programmable superconducting qubits is also demonstrated. Furthermore, the impact of random dephasing, emission, and absorption noises on the quantum gates and entanglement is also demonstrated in this study. It is demonstrated by numerical simulation that CSWAP gate and W‐state generation can be achieved perfectly in one step with high reliability under weak coupling conditions. Hence, this scheme could contribute to quantum teleportation, quantum communication, and some other areas of quantum information processing.

Structural basis for NaV1.7 inhibition by pore blockers.

Voltage-gated sodium channel NaV1.7 plays essential roles in pain and odor perception. NaV1.7 variants cause pain disorders. Accordingly, NaV1.7 has elicited extensive attention in developing new analgesics. Here we present cryo-EM structures of human NaV1.7/β1/β2 complexed with inhibitors XEN907, TC-N1752 and NaV1.7-IN2, explaining specific binding sites and modulation mechanism for the pore blockers. These inhibitors bind in the central cavity blocking ion permeation, but engage different parts of the cavity wall. XEN907 directly causes α- to π-helix transition of DIV-S6 helix, which tightens the fast inactivation gate. TC-N1752 induces π-helix transition of DII-S6 helix mediated by a conserved asparagine on DIII-S6, which closes the activation gate. NaV1.7-IN2 serves as a pore blocker without causing conformational change. Electrophysiological results demonstrate that XEN907 and TC-N1752 stabilize NaV1.7 in inactivated state and delay the recovery from inactivation. Our results provide structural framework for NaV1.7 modulation by pore blockers, and important implications for developing subtype-selective analgesics.

Microwave-activated gates between a fluxonium and a transmon qubit

We propose and analyze two types of microwave-activated gates between a fluxonium and a transmon qubit, namely a cross-resonance (CR) and a CPHASE gate. The large frequency difference between a transmon and a fluxonium makes the realization of a two-qubit gate challenging. For a medium-frequency fluxonium qubit, the transmon-fluxonium system allows for a cross-resonance effect mediated by the higher levels of the fluxonium over a wide range of transmon frequencies. This allows one to realize the cross-resonance gate by driving the fluxonium at the transmon frequency, mitigating typical problems of the cross-resonance gate in transmon-transmon chips related to frequency targeting and residual $ZZ$ coupling. However, when the fundamental frequency of the fluxonium enters the low-frequency regime below $100\phantom{\rule{0.16em}{0ex}}\mathrm{MHz}$, the cross-resonance effect decreases leading to long gate times. For this range of parameters, a fast microwave CPHASE gate can be implemented using the higher levels of the fluxonium. In both cases, we perform numerical simulations of the gate showing that a gate fidelity above $99%$ can be obtained with gate times between 100 and $300\phantom{\rule{0.16em}{0ex}}\mathrm{ns}$. Next to a detailed gate analysis, we perform a study of chip yield for a surface code lattice of fluxonia and transmons interacting via the proposed cross-resonance gate. We find a much better yield as compared to a transmon-only architecture with the cross-resonance gate as native two-qubit gate.

Enhanced sodium channel inactivation by temperature and FHF2 deficiency blocks heat nociception.

Transient voltage-gated sodium currents are essential for the initiation and conduction of action potentials in neurons and cardiomyocytes. The amplitude and duration of sodium currents are tuned by intracellular fibroblast growth factor homologous factors (FHFs/iFGFs) that associate with the cytoplasmic tails of voltage-gated sodium channels (Na v s), and genetic ablation of Fhf genes disturbs neurological and cardiac functions. Among reported phenotypes, Fhf2null mice undergo lethal hyperthermia-induced cardiac conduction block attributable to the combined effects of FHF2 deficiency and elevated temperature on the cardiac sodium channel (Na v 1.5) inactivation rate. Fhf2null mice also display a lack of heat nociception, while retaining other somatosensory capabilities. Here, we use electrophysiological and computational methods to show that the heat nociception deficit can be explained by the combined effects of elevated temperature and FHF2 deficiency on the fast inactivation gating of Na v 1.7 and tetrodotoxin-resistant sodium channels expressed in dorsal root ganglion C fibers. Hence, neurological and cardiac heat-associated deficits in Fhf2null mice derive from shared impacts of FHF deficiency and temperature towards Na v inactivation gating kinetics in distinct tissues.

Implementing a fast unbounded quantum fanout gate using power-law interactions

The standard circuit model for quantum computation presumes the ability to directly perform gates between arbitrary pairs of qubits, which is unlikely to be practical for large-scale experiments. Power-law interactions with strength decaying as $1/r^\alpha$ in the distance $r$ provide an experimentally realizable resource for information processing, whilst still retaining long-range connectivity. We leverage the power of these interactions to implement a fast quantum fanout gate with an arbitrary number of targets. Our implementation allows the quantum Fourier transform (QFT) and Shor's algorithm to be performed on a $D$-dimensional lattice in time logarithmic in the number of qubits for interactions with $\alpha \le D$. As a corollary, we show that power-law systems with $\alpha \le D$ are difficult to simulate classically even for short times, under a standard assumption that factoring is classically intractable. Complementarily, we develop a new technique to give a general lower bound, linear in the size of the system, on the time required to implement the QFT and the fanout gate in systems that are constrained by a linear light cone. This allows us to prove an asymptotically tighter lower bound for long-range systems than is possible with previously available techniques.

SWAP Gate between a Majorana Qubit and a Parity-Protected Superconducting Qubit

High fidelity quantum information processing requires a combination of fast gates and long-lived quantum memories. In this Letter, we propose a hybrid architecture, where a parity-protected superconducting qubit is directly coupled to a Majorana qubit, which plays the role of a quantum memory. The superconducting qubit is based upon a π-periodic Josephson junction realized with gate-tunable semiconducting wires, where the tunneling of individual Cooper pairs is suppressed. One of the wires additionally contains four Majorana zero modes that define a qubit. We demonstrate that this enables the implementation of a SWAP gate, allowing for the transduction of quantum information between the topological and conventional qubit. This architecture combines fast gates, which can be realized with the superconducting qubit, with a topologically protected Majorana memory.

Fast high-fidelity single-qubit gates for flip-flop qubits in silicon

The flip-flop qubit, encoded in the states with antiparallel donor-bound electron and donor nuclear spins in silicon, showcases long coherence times, good controllability, and, in contrast to other donor-spin-based schemes, long-distance coupling. Electron spin control near the interface, however, is likely to shorten the relaxation time by many orders of magnitude, reducing the overall qubit quality factor. Here, we theoretically study the multilevel system that is formed by the interacting electron and nuclear spins and derive analytical effective two-level Hamiltonians with and without periodic driving. We then propose an optimal control scheme that produces fast and robust single-qubit gates in the presence of low-frequency noise without relying on parametrically restrictive sweet spots. This scheme increases considerably both the relaxation time and the qubit quality factor.

Zoo of silicon-based quantum bits

Zoo of silicon-based quantum bits

Double-Transmon Coupler: Fast Two-Qubit Gate with No Residual Coupling for Highly Detuned Superconducting Qubits

Tunable couplers, which turn on and off the interaction between qubits, have emerged as a key means to achieve low error rates in superconducting quantum computers. Conventional devices using one transmon qubit exhibit unwanted residual coupling, though, especially at the high detuning that is desirable for suppressing crosstalk errors. To solve this critical problem, the author proposes a tunable coupler based on two transmons that satisfies the ideal conditions of no residual coupling and fast two-qubit gate operations at high detuning. This double-transmon coupler is expected to become standard for superconducting architectures by eliminating unwanted coupling during idle time.

Measurement-based estimator scheme for continuous quantum error correction

Canonical discrete quantum error correction (DQEC) schemes use projective von Neumann measurements on stabilizers to discretize the error syndromes into a finite set, and fast unitary gates are applied to recover the corrupted information. Quantum error correction (QEC) based on continuous measurement, known as continuous quantum error correction (CQEC), in principle, can be executed faster than DQEC and can also be resource efficient. However, CQEC requires meticulous filtering of noisy continuous measurement data to reliably extract error syndromes on the basis of which errors could be detected. In this paper, we show that by constructing a measurement-based estimator (MBE) of the logical qubit to be protected, which is driven by the noisy continuous measurement currents of the stabilizers, it is possible to accurately track the errors occurring on the physical qubits in real time. We use this MBE to develop a continuous quantum error correction (MBE-CQEC) scheme that can protect the logical qubit to a high degree, surpassing the performance of DQEC, and also allows QEC to be conducted either immediately or in delayed time with instantaneous feedbacks.

Coupled superconducting spin qubits with spin-orbit interaction

Superconducting spin qubits, also known as Andreev spin qubits, promise to combine the benefits of superconducting qubits and spin qubits defined in quantum dots. While most approaches to control these qubits rely on controlling the spin degree of freedom via the supercurrent, superconducting spin qubits can also be coupled to each other via the superconductor to implement two-qubit quantum gates. We theoretically investigate the interaction between superconducting spin qubits in the weak tunneling regime and concentrate on the effect of spin-orbit interaction (SOI), which can be large in semiconductor-based quantum dots and thereby offers an additional tuning parameter for quantum gates. We find analytically that the effective interaction between two superconducting spin qubits consists of Ising, Heisenberg, and Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interactions and can be tuned by the superconducting phase difference, the tunnel barrier strength, or the SOI parameters. The Josephson current becomes dependent on SOI and spin orientations. We demonstrate that this interaction can be used for fast controlled phase-flip gates with a fidelity >99.99%. We propose a scalable network of superconducting spin qubits which is suitable for implementing the surface code.

Fast multi-qubit global-entangling gates without individual addressing of trapped ions

We propose and study ways speeding up of the entangling operations in the trapped ions system with high fidelity. First, we find a scheme to increase the speed of a two-qubit gate without the limitation of trap frequency, which was considered as the fundamental limit. Second, we study the fast gate scheme for entangling more than two qubits simultaneously. We apply the method of applying multiple frequency components on laser beams for the gate operations. In particular, in order to avoid infinite terms from the coupling to carrier transition, we focus on the phase-insensitive gate scheme here. We carefully study the effect of large excitation of motional mode beyond the limit of Lamb–Dicke approximation by including up to second order terms of the Lamb–Dicke parameter. We study the speed limit of multi-qubit global entangling gates without individual addressing requirements. Furthermore, our gates can be made insensitive to the fluctuation of initial motional phases which are difficult to stabilise in the phase-insensitive gate scheme.

Coherent effects of pulsed fast gate in 1D- and 2D ion quantum computer architectures

Trapped ions are one of the most promising platforms for quantum computing due to the longest qubit coherence times and the highest gate fidelities. However, scaling the number of ions (qubits) in a linear Coulomb crystal is the key difficulty on the way to multi-qubit systems. One of the promising pathways to scale the number of qubits is to implement the pulsed non-adiabatic gates based on the sequence of State Dependent Kicks (SDKs). We have analytically and numerically studied the influence of coherent effects in the SDK sequence and, correspondingly, have deduced the influence of the individual SDK error on the net gate's fidelity. We have shown that the coherence effects significantly impact the fidelity of non-adiabatic gates and must be taken into the account. As practical examples, we have developed a numerical model for full simulation of coherence effects using a linear ion microtrap array and a 2D microtrap array. We have also studied the dependency of the gate fidelity on the laser power fluctuations.

Hamiltonian Engineering with Multicolor Drives for Fast Entangling Gates and Quantum Crosstalk Cancellation.

Quantum computers built with superconducting artificial atoms already stretch the limits of their classical counterparts. While the lowest energy states of these artificial atoms serve as the qubit basis, the higher levels are responsible for both a host of attractive gate schemes as well as generating undesired interactions. In particular, when coupling these atoms to generate entanglement, the higher levels cause shifts in the computational levels that lead to unwanted ZZ quantum crosstalk. Here, we present a novel technique to manipulate the energy levels and mitigate this crosstalk with simultaneous off-resonant drives on coupled qubits. This breaks a fundamental deadlock between qubit-qubit coupling and crosstalk. In a fixed-frequency transmon architecture with strong coupling and crosstalk cancellation, additional cross-resonance drives enable a 90ns CNOT with a gate error of (0.19±0.02)%, while a second set of off-resonant drives enables a novel CZ gate. Furthermore, we show a definitive improvement in circuit performance with crosstalk cancellation over seven qubits, demonstrating the scalability of the technique. This Letter paves the way for superconducting hardware with faster gates and greatly improved multiqubit circuit fidelities.

A novel high‐frequency floating resonant gate driver with reduced gate driving loss

Conventional resistive gate driving circuits suffer from significant recovery gate driving losses, especially at MHz ranges. The increasing gate driving losses brought by high switching frequency place a limitation to the high power density converter design. This paper proposes a novel floating resonant gate driver which maintains high efficiency at several megahertz operating frequency. The gate loss reduction is achieved by adopting a resonant process with driving power recycling. Part of the gate driving power can be recycled to a gate driving capacitor in the gate driving loop during charging and discharging. The proposed gate driver merges the merits of fast switching speed and low gate driving losses. A prototype of LLC power converter with the proposed floating resonant gate driver operating at 3.5 MHz is implemented. According to the experimental verification, the proposed gate driver realized a driving loss reduction by 70% and theoretical analysis is in good agreement with experimental results.