Digital control of a superconducting qubit using a Josephson pulse generator at 3 K

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates the digital control of a superconducting qubit at 0.01 K using a Josephson pulse generator at 3 K, showing comparable performance to traditional electronics and highlighting its potential for scalable quantum computing.

Contribution

It introduces a method for controlling a superconducting qubit with a Josephson pulse generator at 3 K, reducing power and size while maintaining qubit coherence and fidelity.

Findings

Qubit lifetime and coherence times are maintained within measurement fluctuations.

JPG gate error is measured at 2.1 x 10^-2.

Control electronics at 3 K are viable for scalable quantum systems.

Abstract

Scaling of quantum computers to fault-tolerant levels relies critically on the integration of energy-efficient, stable, and reproducible qubit control and readout electronics. In comparison to traditional semiconductor control electronics (TSCE) located at room temperature, the signals generated by Josephson junction (JJ) based rf sources benefit from small device sizes, low power dissipation, intrinsic calibration, superior reproducibility, and insensitivity to ambient fluctuations. Previous experiments to co-locate qubits and JJ-based control electronics resulted in quasiparticle poisoning of the qubit; degrading the qubit's coherence and lifetime. In this paper, we digitally control a 0.01~K transmon qubit with pulses from a Josephson pulse generator (JPG) located at the 3~K stage of a dilution refrigerator. We directly compare the qubit lifetime $T_1$, coherence time $T_2^*$, and thermal occupation $P_{th}$ when the qubit is controlled by the JPG circuit versus the TSCE setup. We find agreement to within the daily fluctuations on $\pm 0.5~\mu$s and $\pm 2~\mu$s for $T_1$ and $T_2^*$, respectively, and agreement to within the 1\% error for $P_{th}$. Additionally, we perform randomized benchmarking to measure an average JPG gate error of $2.1 \times 10^{-2}$. In combination with a small device size ($<25$~mm$^2$) and low on-chip power dissipation ($\ll 100~\mu$W), these results are an important step towards demonstrating the viability of using JJ-based control electronics located at temperature stages higher than the mixing chamber stage in highly-scaled superconducting quantum information systems.