Reaching 10 ms single photon lifetimes for superconducting aluminum cavities

TL;DR

This paper reports achieving extremely high quality factors and long intrinsic lifetimes in aluminum 3D superconducting microwave cavities, significantly advancing quantum memory potential in circuit QED systems.

Contribution

Demonstrated internal quality factors exceeding 0.5 billion and intrinsic lifetimes of 0.01 seconds in aluminum 3D cavities, surpassing previous benchmarks.

Findings

Achieved >0.5x10^9 quality factors in aluminum cavities

Reached 0.01 second intrinsic lifetimes at single photon energies

Enhanced prospects for long-lived quantum memories

Abstract

Three-dimensional microwave cavities have recently been combined with superconducting qubits in the circuit quantum electrodynamics (cQED) architecture. These cavities should have less sensitivity to dielectric and conductor losses at surfaces and interfaces, which currently limit the performance of planar resonators. We expect that significantly (>10^3) higher quality factors and longer lifetimes should be achievable for 3D structures. Motivated by this principle, we have reached internal quality factors greater than 0.5x10^9 and intrinsic lifetimes of 0.01 seconds for multiple aluminum superconducting cavity resonators at single photon energies and millikelvin temperatures. These improvements could enable long lived quantum memories with submicrosecond access times when strongly coupled to superconducting qubits.