Overcoming disorder in superconducting globally driven quantum computing

TL;DR

This paper investigates how static disorder affects superconducting quantum computing architectures and demonstrates that pulse optimization techniques like GRAPE can restore high-fidelity quantum operations despite fabrication imperfections.

Contribution

The study shows that pulse optimization, specifically GRAPE, effectively mitigates the effects of disorder in superconducting quantum systems, ensuring reliable quantum operations.

Findings

High-fidelity operations (>99.9%) achieved with optimized pulses

Disorder significantly impacts quantum state propagation and gate fidelity

Pulse optimization restores universal quantum logic despite disorder

Abstract

We study the impact of static disorder on a globally-controlled superconducting quantum computing architecture based on a quasi-two-dimensional ladder geometry [R. Menta et al., Phys. Rev. Research 7, L012065 (2025)]. Specifically, we examine how fabrication-induced inhomogeneities in qubit resonant frequencies and coupling strengths affect quantum state propagation and the fidelity of fundamental quantum operations. Using numerical simulations, we quantify the degradation in performance due to disorder and identify single-qubit rotations, two-qubit entangling gates, and quantum information transport as particularly susceptible. To address this challenge, we rely on pulse optimization schemes, and, in particular, on the GRAPE (Gradient Ascent Pulse Engineering) algorithm. Our results demonstrate that, even for realistic levels of disorder, optimized pulse sequences can achieve high-fidelity operations, exceeding 99.9% for the three quantum operations, restoring reliable universal quantum logic and robust information flow. These findings highlight pulse optimization as a powerful strategy to enhance the resilience to disorder of solid-state globally-driven quantum computing platforms.