- Open Access
Subharmonic Control of a Fluxonium Qubit via a Purcell-Protected Flux Line
PRX Quantum 6, 030315 – Published 29 July, 2025
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/yx15-jyl7
Abstract
Protecting qubits from environmental noise while maintaining strong coupling for fast high-fidelity control is a central challenge for quantum information processing. Here, we demonstrate a control scheme for superconducting fluxonium qubits that eliminates qubit decay through the control channel by suppressing the environmental density of states at the transition frequency. Adding a low-pass filter on the flux line allows for flux-biasing and, at the same time, coherently controlling the fluxonium qubit by parametrically driving it at integer fractions of its transition frequency. We compare the filtered to the unfiltered configuration and find a 5-times-longer , and a 10-times-improved -echo time in the filtered case. We demonstrate coherent control with up to 11-photon subharmonic drives, highlighting the strong nonlinearity of the fluxonium potential. Measured Rabi frequencies and drive-induced frequency shifts show excellent agreement with numerical and analytical models. Furthermore, we show the equivalence of a 3-photon subharmonic drive to an on-resonance drive by benchmarking subharmonic gate fidelities above 99.94%. These results open up a scalable path for full qubit control through a single Purcell-protected channel, providing strong suppression of control-induced decoherence and enabling wiring-efficient superconducting quantum processors.
Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)
Popular Summary
A quantum system is very sensitive to disturbances from its environment. To achieve high coherence, the quantum system must be isolated from the environment. However, to control the quantum system, it must also be coupled to control elements, which decreases the intrinsic coherence of the device. This relation is reciprocal, meaning that faster control necessitates stronger coupling of the control element and therefore faster decoherence of the system. Balancing the speed of operation and rate of information loss is therefore a fundamental challenge for quantum information processing.
Here, we investigate an alternative control scheme that minimizes decoherence from the control environment while still allowing for fast control and apply it to superconducting fluxonium-type qubits. Instead of relying on the typical single-photon interaction at the resonance frequency of the qubit, we control the qubit with multiple photons at an integer fraction of its frequency. In our system, we observe high-photon-number transitions of up to 11 photons. This is possible because fluxonium qubits are highly nonlinear elements that can mediate interactions between multiple photons. Utilizing multiphoton transitions allows us to filter the control channel at the resonance frequency, thus minimizing information loss. With this setup, we demonstrate that the coherence can be substantially improved while retaining fast and high-fidelity qubit control.
Our method reduces noise-induced decay as a major contributor to decoherence from the quantum system, making it a viable alternative for control methods for large-scale quantum systems.
Article Text
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