Effects of surface treatments on flux tunable transmon qubits

TL;DR

This study investigates how various surface treatments, including UV-light, ion irradiation, and vacuum loading, affect the coherence and noise characteristics of flux-tunable superconducting transmon qubits, aiming to reduce environmental noise sources.

Contribution

It provides a comparative analysis of different surface treatments on transmon qubits, revealing methods to improve flux noise and frequency tuning without degrading coherence.

Findings

UV-light and NH3 treatments reduce flux noise by removing magnetic adsorbates.

Ne ion bombardment decreases relaxation rate $
$.

SF$_6$ ion bombardment allows in-situ frequency tuning without coherence loss.

Abstract

One of the main limitations in state-of-the art solid-state quantum processors are qubit decoherence and relaxation due to noise in their local environment. For the field to advance towards full fault-tolerant quantum computing, a better understanding of the underlying microscopic noise sources is therefore needed. Adsorbates on surfaces, impurities at interfaces and material defects have been identified as sources of noise and dissipation in solid-state quantum devices. Here, we use an ultra-high vacuum package to study the impact of vacuum loading, UV-light exposure and ion irradiation treatments on coherence and slow parameter fluctuations of flux tunable superconducting transmon qubits. We analyse the effects of each of these surface treatments by comparing averages over many individual qubits and measurements before and after treatment. The treatments studied do not significantly impact the relaxation rate $\Gamma_1$ and the echo dephasing rate $\Gamma_2^\textrm{e}$, except for Ne ion bombardment which reduces $\Gamma_1$. In contrast, flux noise parameters are improved by removing magnetic adsorbates from the chip surfaces with UV-light and NH$_3$ treatments. Additionally, we demonstrate that SF$_6$ ion bombardment can be used to adjust qubit frequencies in-situ and post fabrication without affecting qubit coherence at the sweet spot.