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High-Fidelity Measurement of a Superconducting Qubit Using an On-Chip Microwave Photon Counter

A. Opremcak1,*, C. H. Liu1, C. Wilen1, K. Okubo1, B. G. Christensen1,†, D. Sank2, T. C. White2, A. Vainsencher2, M. Giustina2 et al.

A. Megrant2, B. Burkett2, B. L. T. Plourde3, and R. McDermott1,‡

  • 1Department of Physics, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, Wisconsin 53706, USA
  • 2Google Research, Santa Barbara, California 93117, USA
  • 3Department of Physics, Syracuse University, Syracuse, New York 13244, USA

  • *opremcak@wisc.edu
  • †Northrop Grumman Corporation, Linthicum, Maryland 21090, USA.
  • ‡rfmcdermott@wisc.edu
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Phys. Rev. X 11, 011027 – Published 10 February, 2021

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevX.11.011027

Abstract

We describe an approach to the high-fidelity measurement of a superconducting qubit using an on-chip microwave photon counter. The protocol relies on the transient response of a dispersively coupled measurement resonator to map the state of the qubit to “bright” and “dark” cavity pointer states that are characterized by a large differential photon occupation. Following this mapping, we photodetect the resonator using the Josephson photomultiplier, which transitions between classically distinguishable flux states when cavity photon occupation exceeds a certain threshold. Our technique provides access to the binary outcome of projective quantum measurement at the millikelvin stage without the need for quantum-limited preamplification and thresholding at room temperature. We achieve raw single-shot measurement fidelity in excess of 98% across multiple samples using this approach in total measurement times under 500 ns. In addition, we show that the backaction and crosstalk associated with our measurement protocol can be mitigated by exploiting the intrinsic damping of the Josephson photomultiplier itself.

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Popular Summary

The central challenge in building a fault-tolerant quantum computer is error correction. Robust correction of errors in large multiqubit arrays requires accurate and continuous measurement of auxiliary qubits that are configured and operated to track errors in the array. Here, we demonstrate fast, high-fidelity measurement of a superconducting qubit using a microwave photon counter. This approach provides access to the result of a projective quantum measurement at millikelvin temperatures, a key advantage for scaling to multiqubit systems.

In our protocol, the qubit state is first mapped to “bright” and “dark” states in an auxiliary linear cavity; the bright states contain roughly 30 microwave photons whereas the dark states have close to zero. Cavity occupation is subsequently detected by the photon counter, which registers the bright state as a “click”: a large, easily measured classical signal. With this approach, we achieve raw measurement fidelity in excess of 98% with measurement times of less than 500 ns.

Our measurement requires minimal auxiliary hardware and has a physical footprint that is well matched to the size of the qubit array. As a result, this approach could form the measurement pillar of a robust, scalable quantum-classical interface for next-generation superconducting qubit arrays.

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Phys. Rev. X 11, 011027– Published 10 February, 2021
  • Received 16 August 2020
  • Revised 30 November 2020
  • Accepted 14 December 2020
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