Superconducting integrated on-demand quantum memory with microwave pulse preservation

TL;DR

This paper introduces a superconducting quantum memory with high efficiency and fidelity, capable of preserving microwave pulse shapes at the single-photon level, advancing scalable quantum error correction.

Contribution

It presents a novel integrated superconducting quantum memory architecture with dynamic RF-SQUID coupling, achieving improved storage time and fidelity for quantum microwave pulses.

Findings

Memory cycle time of 1.51 microseconds

57.5% storage fidelity at single-photon level

Preservation of pulse shape during retrieval

Abstract

Microwave quantum memory represents a critical component for quantum radars and resource-efficient approaches to quantum error correction. Superconducting microwave resonators provide highly efficient storage, long coherence times, on-demand reading and even in memory pulse engineering, but it is still challenging to overcome design and materials induced loss channels for on-chip realization. In this work, we present a novel architecture of integrated superconducting quantum memory with a dynamically controlled RF-SQUID coupling element in pulse regime, thus ensuring high efficiency storage and cycling storage time. It demonstrates a memory cycle time of 1.51 $\mu s$ and 57.5% storage fidelity with preservation of the stored pulse shape during the retrieval at single-photon level excitations. We establish that while the proposed active coupler realization introduces no measurable fidelity degradation, the primary limitation arises from impedance matching and materials imperfections. Still the device was used only for storing finite-duration near-single-photon classical microwave pulses, we assert that it operates as a linear device when the photon population in the common resonator remains low so it should be compatible with quantum state storage.The proposed architecture highlights a disruptive potential for on-chip qubit and memory integration for scalable quantum error correction, while identifying specific avenues for near-unity storage fidelity.