- Open Access
Simultaneous sweet-spot locking of gradiometric fluxonium qubits
Phys. Rev. Applied 24, 054031 – Published 12 November, 2025
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/gjks-ctvm
Abstract
Efforts to scale up superconducting processors that employ flux qubits face numerous challenges, among which is the crosstalk created by neighboring flux lines, which are necessary to bias the qubits at the zero-field and sweet spots. A solution to this problem is to use symmetric gradiometric loops, which incorporate a flux-locking mechanism that, once a fluxon is trapped during cooldown, holds the device at the sweet spot and limits the need for active biasing. We demonstrate this technique by simultaneously locking multiple gradiometric fluxonium qubits in which an aluminum loop retains the trapped fluxon indefinitely. By compensating the inductive asymmetry between the two loops of the design, we are able to lock the effective flux bias within from the target, corresponding to only degradation in when operated in zero external field. The design strategy demonstrated here reduces integration complexity for flux qubits by minimizing crosstalk and potentially eliminating the need for local flux bias.
Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)
Article Text
References (30)
- J. Koch, V. Manucharyan, M. H. Devoret, and L. I. Glazman, Charging effects in the inductively shunted Josephson junction, Phys. Rev. Lett. 103, 217004 (2009).
- V. E. Manucharyan, J. Koch, L. I. Glazman, and M. H. Devoret, Fluxonium: Single Cooper-pair circuit free of charge offsets, Science 326, 113 (2009).
- L. B. Nguyen, Y.-H. Lin, A. Somoroff, R. Mencia, N. Grabon, and V. E. Manucharyan, High-coherence fluxonium qubit, Phys. Rev. X 9, 041041 (2019).
- H. Zhang, S. Chakram, T. Roy, N. Earnest, Y. Lu, Z. Huang, D. K. Weiss, J. Koch, and D. I. Schuster, Universal fast-flux control of a coherent, low-frequency qubit, Phys. Rev. X 11, 011010 (2021).
- A. Somoroff, Q. Ficheux, R. A. Mencia, H. Xiong, R. Kuzmin, and V. E. Manucharyan, Millisecond coherence in a superconducting qubit, Phys. Rev. Lett. 130, 267001 (2023).
- M. P. Bland, F. Bahrami, J. G. C. Martinez, P. H. Prestegaard, B. M. Smitham, A. Joshi, E. Hedrick, A. Pakpour-Tabrizi, S. Kumar, A. Jindal, R. D. Chang, A. Yang, G. Cheng, N. Yao, R. J. Cava, N. P. d. Leon, and A. A. Houck, 2D transmons with lifetimes and coherence times exceeding 1 millisecond, arXiv:2503.14798 [quant-ph].
- D. Gusenkova, M. Spiecker, R. Gebauer, M. Willsch, D. Willsch, F. Valenti, N. Karcher, L. Grünhaupt, I. Takmakov, P. Winkel, D. Rieger, A. V. Ustinov, N. Roch, W. Wernsdorfer, K. Michielsen, O. Sander, and I. M. Pop, Quantum nondemolition dispersive readout of a superconducting artificial atom using large photon numbers, Phys. Rev. Appl. 15, 064030 (2021).
- H. Xiong, Q. Ficheux, A. Somoroff, L. B. Nguyen, E. Dogan, D. Rosenstock, C. Wang, K. N. Nesterov, M. G. Vavilov, and V. E. Manucharyan, Arbitrary controlled-phase gate on fluxonium qubits using differential ac Stark shifts, Phys. Rev. Res. 4, 023040 (2022).
- F. Bao, et al., Fluxonium: An alternative qubit platform for high-fidelity operations, Phys. Rev. Lett. 129, 010502 (2022).
- I. N. Moskalenko, I. A. Simakov, N. N. Abramov, A. A. Grigorev, D. O. Moskalev, A. A. Pishchimova, N. S. Smirnov, E. V. Zikiy, I. A. Rodionov, and I. S. Besedin, High fidelity two-qubit gates on fluxoniums using a tunable coupler, npj Quantum Inf. 8, 1 (2022).
- L. Ding, M. Hays, Y. Sung, B. Kannan, J. An, A. Di Paolo, A. H. Karamlou, T. M. Hazard, K. Azar, D. K. Kim, B. M. Niedzielski, A. Melville, M. E. Schwartz, J. L. Yoder, T. P. Orlando, S. Gustavsson, J. A. Grover, K. Serniak, and W. D. Oliver, High-fidelity, frequency-flexible two-qubit fluxonium gates with a transmon coupler, Phys. Rev. X 13, 031035 (2023).
- D. A. Rower, L. Ding, H. Zhang, M. Hays, J. An, P. M. Harrington, I. T. Rosen, J. M. Gertler, T. M. Hazard, B. M. Niedzielski, M. E. Schwartz, S. Gustavsson, K. Serniak, J. A. Grover, and W. D. Oliver, Suppressing counter-rotating errors for fast single-qubit gates with fluxonium, PRX Quantum 5, 040342 (2024).
- L. B. Nguyen, G. Koolstra, Y. Kim, A. Morvan, T. Chistolini, S. Singh, K. N. Nesterov, C. Jünger, L. Chen, Z. Pedramrazi, B. K. Mitchell, J. M. Kreikebaum, S. Puri, D. I. Santiago, and I. Siddiqi, Blueprint for a high-performance fluxonium quantum processor, PRX Quantum 3, 037001 (2022).
- X. Dai, D. M. Tennant, R. Trappen, A. J. Martinez, D. Melanson, M. A. Yurtalan, Y. Tang, S. Novikov, J. A. Grover, S. M. Disseler, J. I. Basham, R. Das, D. K. Kim, A. J. Melville, B. M. Niedzielski, S. J. Weber, J. L. Yoder, D. A. Lidar, and A. Lupascu, Calibration of flux crosstalk in large-scale flux-tunable superconducting quantum circuits, PRX Quantum 2, 040313 (2021).
- C. N. Barrett, A. H. Karamlou, S. E. Muschinske, I. T. Rosen, J. Braumüller, R. Das, D. K. Kim, B. M. Niedzielski, M. Schuldt, K. Serniak, M. E. Schwartz, J. L. Yoder, T. P. Orlando, S. Gustavsson, J. A. Grover, and W. D. Oliver, Learning-based calibration of flux crosstalk in transmon qubit arrays, Phys. Rev. Appl. 20, 024070 (2023).
- T. Kontos, M. Aprili, J. Lesueur, F. Genêt, B. Stephanidis, and R. Boursier, Josephson junction through a thin ferromagnetic layer: Negative coupling, Phys. Rev. Lett. 89, 137007 (2002).
- S. Kim, L. V. Abdurakhimov, D. Pham, W. Qiu, H. Terai, S. Ashhab, S. Saito, T. Yamashita, and K. Semba, Superconducting flux qubit with ferromagnetic Josephson -junction operating at zero magnetic field, Commun. Mater. 5, 1 (2024).
- M. J. Schwarz, J. Goetz, Z. Jiang, T. Niemczyk, F. Deppe, A. Marx, and R. Gross, Gradiometric flux qubits with a tunable gap, New J. Phys. 15, 045001 (2013).
- D. Gusenkova, F. Valenti, M. Spiecker, S. Günzler, P. Paluch, D. Rieger, L.-M. Pioraş-Ţimbolmaş, L. P. Zârbo, N. Casali, I. Colantoni, A. Cruciani, S. Pirro, L. Cardani, A. Petrescu, W. Wernsdorfer, P. Winkel, and I. M. Pop, Operating in a deep underground facility improves the locking of gradiometric fluxonium qubits at the sweet spots, Appl. Phys. Lett. 120, 054001 (2022).
- B. S. Deaver and W. M. Fairbank, Experimental evidence for quantized flux in superconducting cylinders, Phys. Rev. Lett. 7, 43 (1961).
- R. Doll and M. Näbauer, Experimental proof of magnetic flux quantization in a superconducting ring, Phys. Rev. Lett. 7, 51 (1961).
- P. Winkel, I. Takmakov, D. Rieger, L. Planat, W. Hasch-Guichard, L. Grünhaupt, N. Maleeva, F. Foroughi, F. Henriques, K. Borisov, J. Ferrero, A. V. Ustinov, W. Wernsdorfer, N. Roch, and I. M. Pop, Nondegenerate parametric amplifiers based on dispersion-engineered Josephson-junction arrays, Phys. Rev. Appl. 13, 024015 (2020).
- L. Grünhaupt, M. Spiecker, D. Gusenkova, N. Maleeva, S. T. Skacel, I. Takmakov, F. Valenti, P. Winkel, H. Rotzinger, W. Wernsdorfer, A. V. Ustinov, and I. M. Pop, Granular aluminium as a superconducting material for high-impedance quantum circuits, Nat. Mater. 18, 816 (2019).
- A. Kou, W. C. Smith, U. Vool, I. M. Pop, K. M. Sliwa, M. Hatridge, L. Frunzio, and M. H. Devoret, Simultaneous monitoring of fluxonium qubits in a waveguide, Phys. Rev. Appl. 9, 064022 (2018).
- P. Winkel, K. Borisov, L. Grünhaupt, D. Rieger, M. Spiecker, F. Valenti, A. V. Ustinov, W. Wernsdorfer, and I. M. Pop, Implementation of a transmon qubit using superconducting granular aluminum, Phys. Rev. X 10, 031032 (2020).
- K. Hida, K. Matsuura, S. Watanabe, and Y. Nakamura, Flux-trapping fluxonium qubit, arXiv:2505.02416 [quant-ph].
- R.-P. Riwar, A. Hosseinkhani, L. D. Burkhart, Y. Y. Gao, R. J. Schoelkopf, L. I. Glazman, and G. Catelani, Normal-metal quasiparticle traps for superconducting qubits, Phys. Rev. B 94, 104516 (2016).
- A. Petrescu, H. E. Türeci, A. V. Ustinov, and I. M. Pop, Fluxon-based quantum simulation in circuit QED, Phys. Rev. B 98, 174505 (2018).
- P. Groszkowski and J. Koch, Scqubits: A Python package for superconducting qubits, Quantum 5, 583 (2021).
- D. López-Núñez, Q. P. Montserrat, G. Rius, E. Bertoldo, A. Torras-Coloma, M. Martínez, and P. Forn-Díaz, Magnetic penetration depth of aluminum thin films, Supercond. Sci. Technol. 38, 095004 (2025).