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  • Letter
  • Open Access

Selective excitation of superconducting qubits with a shared control line through pulse shaping

R. Matsuda1,2,*,†, R. Ohira3,*,‡, T. Sumida3, H. Shiomi2,3, A. Machino1,2, S. Morisaka2,3, K. Koike4, T. Miyoshi2,3,4, Y. Kurimoto3 et al.

Y. Sugita3, Y. Ito3, Y. Suzuki5, P. A. Spring6, S. Wang6, S. Tamate6, Y. Tabuchi6, Y. Nakamura6,7, K. Ogawa2, and M. Negoro2,3

  • *These authors contributed equally to this work.
  • †Contact author: u657789f@ecs.osaka-u.ac.jp
  • ‡Contact author: ohira@quel-inc.com
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Phys. Rev. Research 8, L012003 – Published 6 January, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/xw1s-dt16

Abstract

In conventional architectures of superconducting quantum computers, each qubit is connected to its own control line, leading to a commensurate increase in the number of microwave lines as the system scales. Frequency-multiplexed qubit control addresses this problem by enabling multiple qubits to share a single microwave line. However, it can cause unwanted excitation of nontarget qubits, especially when the detuning between qubits is smaller than the pulse bandwidth. Here, we propose a selective-excitation-pulse (SEP) technique that suppresses unwanted excitations by shaping a drive pulse to create null points at nontarget qubit frequencies. In a proof-of-concept experiment with three fixed-frequency transmon qubits, we demonstrate that the SEP technique achieves single-qubit gate fidelities comparable to those obtained with conventional Gaussian pulses while effectively suppressing unwanted excitations in nontarget qubits. These results highlight the SEP technique as a promising tool for enhancing frequency-multiplexed qubit control.

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Phys. Rev. Research 8, L012003– Published 6 January, 2026
  • Received 23 January 2025
  • Revised 10 September 2025
  • Accepted 5 December 2025
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