DOE OSTI · 3387369
Fast superconducting qubit control with subharmonic drives
Abstract
Increasing the fidelity of single-qubit gates requires a combination of faster pulses and increased qubit coherence. However, these requirements can be contradictory. Additionally, increasing the drive power can heat the qubit’s environment and degrade coherence. In this work, we circumvent this issue and achieve rapid gates by pumping a transmon’s native Kerr at approximately one third of the qubit’s resonant frequency. The subharmonic Rabi rate of the process is proportional to applied drive amplitude cubed, allowing for rapid gates. In addition, we demonstrate that filtering can be used to protect the qubit’s coherence while performing rapid gates. Single qubit gates as short as 37.4 ns are demonstrated with fidelity of 99.91%. We present theoretical calculations indicating that drive induced multi-photon decay will not limit qubit lifetime; calculated power absorption also indicates that this technique could reduce cryostat heating for fast gates, a vital requirement for large-scale quantum computers.
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Xia, Mingkang [Univ. of Pittsburgh, PA (United States); Yale Univ., New Haven, CT (United States)] (ORCID:0009000427591506), Zhou, Chao [Univ. of Pittsburgh, PA (United States)] (ORCID:000900096828148X), Liu, Chenxu [Virginia Polytechnic Inst. and State Univ. (Virginia Tech), Blacksburg, VA (United States). Center for Quantum Information Science and Engineering; Pittsburgh Quantum Institute, PA (United States); Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States)], Patel, Param [Univ. of Pittsburgh, PA (United States); Yale Univ., New Haven, CT (United States)], Cao, Xi [Univ. of Pittsburgh, PA (United States)] (ORCID:0000000327976380), Lu, Pinlei [Univ. of Pittsburgh, PA (United States)] (ORCID:000000028582074X), Mesits, Boris [Univ. of Pittsburgh, PA (United States); Yale Univ., New Haven, CT (United States)], Mucci, Maria [Univ. of Pittsburgh, PA (United States)], Gorski, David [Univ. of Pittsburgh, PA (United States); Pittsburgh Quantum Institute, PA (United States)], Pekker, David [Univ. of Pittsburgh, PA (United States); Pittsburgh Quantum Institute, PA (United States)], Hatridge, Michael [Univ. of Pittsburgh, PA (United States); Yale Univ., New Haven, CT (United States)] (ORCID:0000000208487867). 2025-12-23. Fast superconducting qubit control with subharmonic drives. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-025-67766-6
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