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Technologies that rely on quantum bits (qubits) require long coherence times and high-fidelity operations 1 . Superconducting qubits are one of the leading platforms for achieving these objectives 2 , 3 . However, the coherence of superconducting qubits is affected by the breaking of Cooper pairs of electrons 4 – 6 . The experimentally observed density of the broken Cooper pairs, referred to as quasiparticles, is orders of magnitude higher than the value predicted at equilibrium by the Bardeen–Cooper–Schrieffer theory of superconductivity 7 – 9 . Previous work 10 – 12 has shown that infrared photons considerably increase the quasiparticle density, yet even in the best-isolated systems, it remains much higher 10 than expected, suggesting that another generation mechanism exists 13 . Here we provide evidence that ionizing radiation from environmental radioactive materials and cosmic rays contributes to this observed difference. The effect of ionizing radiation leads to an elevated quasiparticle density, which we predict would ultimately limit the coherence times of superconducting qubits of the type measured here to milliseconds. We further demonstrate that radiation shielding reduces the flux of ionizing radiation and thereby increases the energy-relaxation time. Albeit a small effect for today’s qubits, reducing or mitigating the impact of ionizing radiation will be critical for realizing fault-tolerant superconducting quantum computers. Ionizing radiation from environmental radioactivity and cosmic rays increases the density of broken Cooper pairs in superconducting qubits, reducing their coherence times, but can be partially mitigated by lead shielding.

High-fidelity two-qubit gates at scale are a key requirement to realize the full promise of quantum computation and simulation. The advent and use of coupler elements to tunably control two-qubit interactions has improved operational fidelity in many-qubit systems by reducing parasitic coupling and frequency crowding issues. Nonetheless, two-qubit gate errors still limit the capability of near-term quantum applications. The reason, in part, is that the existing framework for tunable couplers based on the dispersive approximation does not fully incorporate three-body multilevel dynamics, which is essential for addressing coherent leakage to the coupler and parasitic longitudinal (ZZ) interactions during two-qubit gates. Here, we present a systematic approach that goes beyond the dispersive approximation to exploit the engineered level structure of the coupler and optimize its control. Using this approach, we experimentally demonstrate CZ andZZ-free iSWAP gates with two-qubit interaction fidelities of99.76±0.07%and99.87±0.23%, respectively, which are close to theirT1limits.

Superconducting qubits are a promising platform for building a larger-scale quantum processor capable of solving otherwise intractable problems. In order for the processor to reach practical viability, the gate errors need to be further suppressed and remain stable for extended periods of time. With recent advances in qubit control, both single- and two-qubit gate fidelities are now in many cases limited by the coherence times of the qubits. Here we experimentally employ closed-loop feedback to stabilize the frequency fluctuations of a superconducting transmon qubit, thereby increasing its coherence time by 26% and reducing the single-qubit error rate from (8.5 ± 2.1) × 10 −4 to (5.9 ± 0.7) × 10 −4 . Importantly, the resulting high-fidelity operation remains effective even away from the qubit flux-noise insensitive point, significantly increasing the frequency bandwidth over which the qubit can be operated with high fidelity. This approach is helpful in large qubit grids, where frequency crowding and parasitic interactions between the qubits limit their performance. The presence of various noises in the qubit environment is a major limitation on qubit coherence time. Here, the authors demonstrate the use a closed-loop feedback to stabilize frequency noise in a flux-tunable superconducting qubit and suggest this as a scalable approach applicable to other types of noise.

Dielectrics with low loss at microwave frequencies are imperative for high-coherence solid-state quantum computing platforms. Here we study the dielectric loss of hexagonal boron nitride (hBN) thin films in the microwave regime by measuring the quality factor of parallel-plate capacitors (PPCs) made of NbSe 2 –hBN–NbSe 2 heterostructures integrated into superconducting circuits. The extracted microwave loss tangent of hBN is bounded to be at most in the mid-10 −6 range in the low-temperature, single-photon regime. We integrate hBN PPCs with aluminium Josephson junctions to realize transmon qubits with coherence times reaching 25 μs, consistent with the hBN loss tangent inferred from resonator measurements. The hBN PPC reduces the qubit feature size by approximately two orders of magnitude compared with conventional all-aluminium coplanar transmons. Our results establish hBN as a promising dielectric for building high-coherence quantum circuits with substantially reduced footprint and with a high energy participation that helps to reduce unwanted qubit cross-talk. Parallel-plate capacitors of the two-dimensional materials hBN and NbSe 2 are integrated with aluminium Josephson junctions to realize transmon qubits with coherence times reaching 25 μs.

System noise identification is crucial to the engineering of robust quantum systems. Although existing quantum noise spectroscopy (QNS) protocols measure an aggregate amount of noise affecting a quantum system, they generally cannot distinguish between the underlying processes that contribute to it. Here, we propose and experimentally validate a spin-locking-based QNS protocol that exploits the multi-level energy structure of a superconducting qubit to achieve two notable advances. First, our protocol extends the spectral range of weakly anharmonic qubit spectrometers beyond the present limitations set by their lack of strong anharmonicity. Second, the additional information gained from probing the higher-excited levels enables us to identify and distinguish contributions from different underlying noise mechanisms. Engineering qubits with long coherence times requires the ability to distinguish multiple noise sources, which is not possible with typical two-level qubit sensors. Here the authors utilize the multiple level transitions of a superconducting qubit to characterize two common types of external noise.

Solutions for scalable, high-performance optical control are important for the development of scaled atom-based quantum technologies. Modulation of many individual optical beams is central to applying arbitrary gate and control sequences on arrays of atoms or atom-like systems. At telecom wavelengths, miniaturization of optical components via photonic integration has pushed the scale and performance of classical and quantum optics far beyond the limitations of bulk devices. However, material platforms for high-speed telecom integrated photonics lack transparency at the short wavelengths required by leading atomic systems. Here, we propose and implement a scalable and reconfigurable photonic control architecture using integrated, visible-light modulators based on thin-film lithium niobate. We combine this system with techniques in free-space optics and holography to demonstrate multi-channel, gigahertz-rate visible beamshaping. When applied to silicon-vacancy artificial atoms, our system enables the spatial and spectral addressing of a dynamically-selectable set of these stochastically-positioned point emitters. High-speed programmability of spatially-structured light imparts faster control upon atomic qubits. Here, the authors demonstrate reconfigurable GHz-rate modulation on sixteen visible-wavelength channels, used here to address color centers in diamond.

The utility of ferroelectric materials stems from the ability to nucleate and move polarized domains using an electric field. To understand the mechanisms of polarization switching, structural characterization at the nanoscale is required. We used aberration-corrected transmission electron microscopy to follow the kinetics and dynamics of ferroelectric switching at millisecond temporal and subangstrom spatial resolution in an epitaxial bilayer of an antiferromagnetic ferroelectric (BiFeO₃) on a ferromagnetic electrode (La 0.7 Sr o.3 MnO₃). We observed localized nucleation events at the electrode interface, domain wall pinning on point defects, and the formation of ferroelectric domains localized to the ferroelectric and ferromagnetic interface. These results show how defects and interfaces impede full ferroelectric switching of a thin film.

Resonant transverse driving of a two-level system as viewed in the rotating frame couples two degenerate states at the Rabi frequency, an equivalence that emerges in quantum mechanics. While successful at controlling natural and artificial quantum systems, certain limitations may arise (e.g., the achievable gate speed) due to nonidealities like the counterrotating term. We introduce a superconducting composite qubit (CQB), formed from two capacitively coupled transmon qubits, which features a small avoided crossing—smaller than the environmental temperature—between two energy levels. We control this low-frequency CQB using solely baseband pulses, nonadiabatic transitions, and coherent Landau-Zener interference to achieve fast, high-fidelity, single-qubit operations with Clifford fidelities exceeding 99.7%. We also perform coupled qubit operations between two low-frequency CQBs. This work demonstrates that universal nonadiabatic control of low-frequency qubits is feasible using solely baseband pulses.

Interest in manipulating the magnetic order by ultrashort laser pulses has thrived since it was observed that such pulses can be used to alter the magnetization on a sub-picosecond timescale. Usually this involves demagnetization by laser heating or, in rare cases, a transient increase of magnetization. Here we demonstrate a mechanism that allows the magnetic order of a material to be enhanced or attenuated at will. This is possible in systems simultaneously possessing a low, tunable density of conduction band carriers and a high density of magnetic moments. In such systems, the thermalization time can be set such that adiabatic processes dominate the photoinduced change of the magnetic order—the three-temperature model for interacting thermalized electron, spin and lattice reservoirs is bypassed. In ferromagnetic Eu 1− x Gd x O, we thereby demonstrate the strengthening as well as the weakening of the magnetic order by ~10% and within ≤3 ps by optically controlling the magnetic exchange interaction. The control of the magnetic order by optical pulses is of practical relevance for information storage as well as of fundamental interest to understand magnetic processes. Here, the authors demonstrate the control of magnetic order by changing the carrier density in Eu 1− x Gd x O via resonant photoexcitation.

Particle transport and localization phenomena in condensed-matter systems can be modeled using a tight-binding lattice Hamiltonian. The ideal experimental emulation of such a model utilizes simultaneous, high-fidelity control and readout of each lattice site in a highly coherent quantum system. Here, we experimentally study quantum transport in one-dimensional and two-dimensional tight-binding lattices, emulated by a fully controllable 3 × 3 array of superconducting qubits. We probe the propagation of entanglement throughout the lattice and extract the degree of localization in the Anderson and Wannier-Stark regimes in the presence of site-tunable disorder strengths and gradients. Our results are in quantitative agreement with numerical simulations and match theoretical predictions based on the tight-binding model. The demonstrated level of experimental control and accuracy in extracting the system observables of interest will enable the exploration of larger, interacting lattices where numerical simulations become intractable.