On-Chip Levitated Neon Particle Arrays for Robust and Scalable Electron Qubits

TL;DR

This paper introduces an on-chip magnetic-levitation system with neon microparticles to trap electrons for quantum computing, addressing substrate-related issues and enhancing scalability and reproducibility of electron-based qubits.

Contribution

The authors propose a novel on-chip magnetic-levitation architecture that suspends neon microparticles, eliminating substrate effects and enabling scalable, tunable electron qubits with high fidelity.

Findings

Elimination of substrate bump effects improves qubit consistency.

Qubit transition frequency tunable over gigahertz range.

High single-qubit gate fidelity exceeding 99.97%.

Abstract

Electron-on-neon (eNe) qubits have recently emerged as a compelling platform for quantum computing, which combines the vacuum isolation advantages of trapped-ion qubits with the scalability of superconducting circuits. In this system, electrons are trapped in vacuum above a solid neon film deposited on superconducting microwave resonators, where they exhibit strong coupling to the resonators, coherence times of ~0.1 ms, and single-qubit gate fidelities exceeding 99.97%. A central challenge, however, is the spontaneous binding of electrons to neon surface bumps. These bumps, originating from substrate roughness, vary in size: electrons on bumps of suitable sizes within the resonator can couple to microwave photons and function as qubits, whereas those on unfavorable bumps remain inactive yet contribute to background charge noise. Moreover, both the bump landscape and the sites where electrons bind differ from run to run, leading to variable qubit characteristics that hinder scalability. To address this challenging issue, we present an on-chip magnetic-levitation architecture in which arrays of solid-neon microparticles are suspended above the processor chip to act as electron carriers. This design eliminates substrate effects while retaining strong qubit-resonator coupling and supporting inter-qubit connectivity. Our analysis further shows that the qubit transition frequency can be tuned across the gigahertz range and its anharmonicity can reach ~0.8 GHz by tuning the resonator bias voltage. Together, these features suggest a promising pathway toward robust, reproducible, and scalable eNe-based quantum computing.