The spatial correlation of radiation-induced errors in superconducting devices decays over a millimeter

TL;DR

This study investigates how radiation-induced errors in superconducting devices are spatially correlated, revealing that the correlation decays over a millimeter, which informs the design of more resilient quantum hardware.

Contribution

The paper introduces a method to measure the spatial decay of radiation errors in superconducting devices using multiplexed resonator readout and phonon detection.

Findings

Correlation length of radiation errors is approximately one millimeter.

Phonon-mediated errors decay over a millimeter distance.

On-chip seismic array effectively maps impact positions.

Abstract

We perform nanosecond-resolution multiplexed readout on six same-chip superconducting microwave resonators. This allows us to pinpoint the impact positions of ionizing radiation on the chip by measuring the differential time of flight of the generated phonons, inducing correlated errors in the device, thereby implementing an on-chip seismic array. We correlate the phase response of each resonator - a proxy for the absorbed energy - to the distance from the impact point to uncover a millimetric decay length for the phonon-mediated radiation poisoning.