Search for: All records

Cloud-based quantum computers have become a re- ality with a number of companies allowing for cloud-based access to their machines with tens to more than 100 qubits. With easy access to quantum computers, quantum information processing will potentially revolutionize computation, and superconducting transmon-based quantum computers are among some of the more promising devices available. Cloud service providers today host a variety of these and other prototype quantum computers with highly diverse device properties, sizes, and performances. The variation that exists in today’s quantum computers, even among those of the same underlying hardware, motivate the study of how one device can be clearly differentiated and identified from the next. As a case study, this work focuses on the properties of 25 IBM superconducting, fixed-frequency transmon-based quantum computers that range in age from a few months to approximately 2.5 years. Through the analysis of current and historical quantum computer calibration data, this work uncovers key features within the machines, primarily frequency characteristics of transmon qubits, that can serve as a basis for a unique hardware fingerprint of each quantum computer. 

The superconducting transmon qubit is a leading platform for quantum computing and quantum science. Building large, useful quantum systems based on transmon qubits will require significant improvements in qubit relaxation and coherence times, which are orders of magnitude shorter than limits imposed by bulk properties of the constituent materials. This indicates that relaxation likely originates from uncontrolled surfaces, interfaces, and contaminants. Previous efforts to improve qubit lifetimes have focused primarily on designs that minimize contributions from surfaces. However, significant improvements in the lifetime of two-dimensional transmon qubits have remained elusive for several years. Here, we fabricate two-dimensional transmon qubits that have both lifetimes and coherence times with dynamical decoupling exceeding 0.3 milliseconds by replacing niobium with tantalum in the device. We have observed increased lifetimes for seventeen devices, indicating that these material improvements are robust, paving the way for higher gate fidelities in multi-qubit processors.

 

Over the past decades, superconducting qubits have emerged as one of the leading hardware platforms for realizing a quantum processor. Consequently, researchers have made significant effort to understand the loss channels that limit the coherence times of superconducting qubits. A major source of loss has been attributed to two level systems that are present at the material interfaces. It is recently shown that replacing the metal in the capacitor of a transmon with tantalum yields record relaxation and coherence times for superconducting qubits, motivating a detailed study of the tantalum surface. In this work, the chemical profile of the surface of tantalum films grown on c‐plane sapphire using variable energy X‐ray photoelectron spectroscopy (VEXPS) is studied. The different oxidation states of tantalum that are present in the native oxide resulting from exposure to air are identified, and their distribution through the depth of the film is measured. Furthermore, it is shown how the volume and depth distribution of these tantalum oxidation states can be altered by various chemical treatments. Correlating these measurements with detailed measurements of quantum devices may elucidate the underlying microscopic sources of loss.