Impact of ionizing radiation on superconducting qubit coherence

Vepsäläinen, Antti P.; Karamlou, Amir H.; Orrell, John L.; Dogra, Akshunna S.; Loer, Ben; Vasconcelos, Francisca; Kim, David K.; Melville, Alexander J.; Niedzielski, Bethany M.; Yoder, Jonilyn L.; Gustavsson, Simon; Formaggio, Joseph A.; VanDevender, Brent A.; Oliver, William D.

doi:10.1038/s41586-020-2619-8

Title: Impact of ionizing radiation on superconducting qubit coherence

Journal Article · Wed Aug 26 00:00:00 EDT 2020 · Nature (London)

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-020-2619-8· OSTI ID:1657524

^[1]; Karamlou, Amir H. ^[1];

^[2]; Dogra, Akshunna S. ^[3]; Loer, Ben ^[2];

^[1]; Kim, David K. ^[4]; Melville, Alexander J. ^[4]; Niedzielski, Bethany M. ^[4]; Yoder, Jonilyn L. ^[4]; Gustavsson, Simon ^[1];

^[1]; VanDevender, Brent A. ^[2];

^[5]

Massachusetts Inst. of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA (United States)
Pacific Northwest National Lab. (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States)
Massachusetts Inst. of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA (United States); Harvard Univ., Cambridge, MA (United States)
Massachusetts Inst. of Technology (MIT), Lexington, MA (United States). Lincoln Lab.
Massachusetts Inst. of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA (United States); Massachusetts Inst. of Technology (MIT), Lexington, MA (United States). Lincoln Lab.

The practical viability of any qubit technology stands on long coherence times and high-fidelity operations with the superconducting qubit modality being an auspicious example, However, superconducting qubit coherence is impacted by broken Cooper pairs referred to as quasiparticles, with a density that is empirically observed to be orders of magnitude greater than the value predicted for thermal equilibrium by the Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer (BCS) theory of superconductivity. Previous work has shown that infrared photons significantly increase the quasiparticle density, yet even in the best isolated systems, it still remains higher than expected, suggesting that another generation mechanism exists. In this Letter, we provide evidence that ionizing radiation from environmental radioactive materials and cosmic rays contributes to this observed difference, leading to an elevated quasiparticle density that would ultimately limit superconducting qubits of the type measured here to coherence times in the millisecond regime. Additionally, we further demonstrate that introducing radiation shielding reduces the flux of ionizing radiation and positively correlates with increased coherence time. Albeit a small effect for today’s qubits, reducing or otherwise mitigating the impact of ionizing radiation will be critical for realizing fault-tolerant superconducting quantum computers.

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Research Organization:: Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States)

Sponsoring Organization:: USDOE Office of Science (SC), Nuclear Physics (NP); National Science Foundation (NSF); US Army Research Office (ARO)

Grant/Contract Number:: AC05-76RL01830; SC0019295; W911NF-14-1-0682; W911NF-18-1-0218; PHY-1720311

OSTI ID:: 1657524

Report Number(s):: PNNL-SA-150722; TRN: US2203277

Journal Information:: Nature (London), Vol. 584, Issue 7822; ISSN 0028-0836

Publisher:: Nature Publishing GroupCopyright Statement

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

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Cited by: 75 works

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