Accurate Qubit Control with Single Flux Quantum Pulses

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates a method for controlling qubits and harmonic oscillators using single flux quantum pulses, achieving high-fidelity operations faster than traditional microwave techniques.

Contribution

It introduces a flux quantum pulse-based control protocol that replaces microwaves for qubit manipulation, with detailed analysis of error sources and high-fidelity results.

Findings

Achieves gate fidelities over 99.9%

Operates within 20 ns sequences

Demonstrates coherent control with flux quantum pulses

Abstract

We describe the coherent manipulation of harmonic oscillator and qubit modes using resonant trains of single flux quantum pulses in place of microwaves. We show that coherent rotations are obtained for pulse-to-pulse spacing equal to the period of the oscillator. We consider a protocol for preparing bright and dark harmonic oscillator pointer states. Next we analyze rotations of a two-state qubit system. We calculate gate errors due to timing jitter of the single flux quantum pulses and due to weak anharmonicity of the qubit. We show that gate fidelities in excess of 99.9% are achievable for sequence lengths of order 20 ns.