Ubiquitous noise sources in quantum systems remain a key obstacle to building quantum computers, necessitating the use of quantum error correction codes. Recently, error-correcting codes tailored for noise-biased systems have been shown to offer high fault-tolerance thresholds and reduced hardware overhead, positioning noise-biased qubits as promising candidates for building universal quantum computers. However, quantum operations on these platforms remain challenging, and their noise structures have not yet been rigorously benchmarked to the same extent as those of conventional quantum hardware. In this work, we develop a comprehensive quantum control toolbox for a scalable noise-biased qubit, detuned Kerr-cat qubit, including initialization, universal single-qubit gates, and quantum nondemolition readout. We systematically characterize the noise structure of these operations using gate set tomography and dihedral randomized benchmarking, achieving high local gate fidelities, with [Formula: see text] and [Formula: see text]. Notably, the noise bias of the detuned Kerr-cat qubit approaches 250 with a phase-flip time of [Formula: see text], which outperforms its resonant-Kerr-cat qubit counterparts as reported previously, representing a state-of-the-art performance benchmark for Kerr-cat qubits. Moreover, our results reveal a critical overestimation of operational noise bias inferred from bit-flip and phase-flip times alone, highlighting the necessity of a precise and direct benchmarking for noise-biased qubit operations. Our work thus establishes a framework for systematically characterizing and validating the performance of quantum operations in structured-noise architectures, which lays the groundwork for implementing efficient quantum error correction in next-generation architectures.

Electrons bound to the surface of superfluid helium have been proposed as a scalable platform for charge- and spin-based quantum computing. Cavity quantum electrodynamics provides a promising method to implement quantum measurement and control of superfluid helium-bound electrons. In this approach, a cavity amplifies the strength of the interaction between the electron and a single photon for coherent exchange of quantum information and qubit readout. This strong coupling regime has been used for quantum measurement in different platforms such as superconducting qubits, atoms and semiconductor quantum dots. Here we demonstrate strong coupling between a microwave photon and the quantized motional state of a single electron on helium using a device comprising a quantum dot and superconducting resonator. Access to this regime provides a basis for developing single-electron spin qubit readout protocols using spin-orbit hybridization techniques that have already been demonstrated in semiconductor quantum dots.

Electrons trapped on the surface of cryogenic substrates (liquid helium, solid neon or hydrogen) are an emerging platform for quantum information processing made attractive by the inherent purity of the electron environment, the scalability of trapping devices and the predicted long lifetime of electron spin states. Here we demonstrate the spatial control and detection of single electrons above the surface of liquid helium at temperatures above 1 K. A superconducting coplanar waveguide resonator is used to read out the charge state of an electron trap defined by gate electrodes beneath the helium surface. Dispersive frequency shifts are observed as the trap is loaded with electrons, from several tens down to single electrons. These frequency shifts are in good agreement with our theoretical model that treats each electron as a classical oscillator coupled to the cavity field. This sensitive charge readout scheme can aid efforts to develop large-scale quantum processors that require the high cooling powers available in cryostats operating above 1 K.

The in-plane motion of an electron on helium can couple to superconducting microwave resonators via electrical dipole coupling, offering a robust and rapid readout scheme. In previous efforts, microwave resonator designs for electrons on helium have lacked the coupling strength to reach the strong coupling regime, where coherent quantum effects outlast both electron and resonator decoherence rates. High-impedance superconducting microwave resonators offer a path to strong coupling, but integrating such resonators with electrons on helium remains an outstanding challenge. Here, we introduce a high-impedance resonator design compatible with strong coupling to electrons on helium. We fabricate and measure titanium nitride resonators with median internal quality factors of 3.9 x 105 and average impedance of 2.5 kQ, promising a sevenfold increase in coupling strength compared with standard 50-Q resonators. In addition, we develop a simplified resonator model from the capacitance matrix and sheet inductance that accurately predicts the mode frequencies, significantly simplifying the design process of future resonators for investigating quantum effects with electrons on helium.

Superinductors have become a crucial component in the superconducting circuit toolbox, playing a key role in the development of more robust qubits. Enhancing the performance of these devices can be achieved by suspending the superinductors from the substrate, thereby reducing stray capacitance. Here, we present a fabrication framework for constructing superconducting circuits with suspended superinductors in planar architectures. To validate the effectiveness of this process, we systematically characterize both resonators and qubits with suspended arrays of Josephson junctions, ultimately confirming the high quality of the superinductive elements. In addition, this process is broadly compatible with other types of superinductors and circuit designs. Our results not only pave the way for scalable superconducting architectures utilizing superinductors but also provide the primitive for future investigation of loss mechanisms associated with the device substrate.

The Kerr-cat qubit is a bosonic qubit in which multiphoton Schr & ouml;dinger cat states are stabilized by applying a two-photon drive to an oscillator with a Kerr nonlinearity. The suppressed bit-flip rate with increasing cat size makes this qubit a promising candidate to implement quantum error correction codes tailored for noise-biased qubits. However, achieving strong light-matter interactions necessary for stabilizing and controlling this qubit has traditionally required strong microwave drives that heat the qubit and degrade its performance. In contrast, increasing the coupling to the drive port removes the need for strong drives at the expense of large Purcell decay. By integrating an effective band-block filter on chip, we overcome this trade-off and realize a Kerr-cat qubit in a scalable 2D superconducting circuit with high coherence. This filter provides 30 dB of isolation at the qubit frequency with negligible attenuation at the frequencies required for stabilization and readout. We experimentally demonstrate quantum nondemolition readout fidelity of 99.6% for a cat with eight photons. Also, to have high-fidelity universal control over this qubit, we combine fast Rabi oscillations with a new demonstration of the X ( pi / 2 ) gate through phase modulation of the stabilization drive. Finally, the lifetime in this architecture is examined as a function of the cat size of up to ten photons in the oscillator, achieving a bit-flip time higher than 1 ms and only a linear increase in the phase-flip rate, in good agreement with the theoretical analysis of the circuit. Our qubit shows promise as a building block for fault-tolerant quantum processors with a small footprint.

Electron charge qubits are compelling candidates for solid-state quantum computing because of their inherent simplicity in qubit design, fabrication, control, and readout. However, all existing electron charge qubits, built upon conventional semiconductors and superconductors, suffer from severe charge noise that limits the coherence time to the order of 1 microsecond. Here, we report our experimental realization of ultralong-coherence electron charge qubits, based upon isolated single electrons trapped on an ultraclean solid neon surface in vacuum. Quantum information is encoded in the motional states of an electron that is strongly coupled with microwave photons in an on-chip superconducting resonator. The measured relaxation time $T_1$ and coherence time $T_2$ are both on the order of 0.1 milliseconds. The single-shot readout fidelity without using a quantum-limited amplifier is 98.1%. The average single-qubit gate fidelity using Clifford-based randomized benchmarking is 99.97%. Simultaneous strong coupling of two qubits with the same resonator is demonstrated, as a first step toward two-qubit entangling gates for universal quantum computing. These results manifest that the electron-on-solid-neon (eNe) charge qubits outperform all existing charge qubits to date and rival state-of-the-art superconducting transmon qubits, offering an appealing platform for quantum computing.

We describe a helium source cell for use in cryogenic experiments that is hermetically sealed in situ on the cold plate of a cryostat. The source cell is filled with helium gas at room temperature and, subsequently, sealed using a cold weld crimping tool before the cryostat is closed and cooled down. At low temperatures, the helium condenses and collects in a connected experimental volume, as monitored via the frequency response of a planar superconducting resonator device sensitive to small amounts of liquid helium. This on-cryostat helium source negates the use of a filling tube between the cryogenic volumes and room temperature, thereby preventing unwanted effects such as temperature instabilities that arise from the thermomechanical motion of helium within the system. This helium source can be used in experiments investigating the properties of quantum fluids or to better thermalize quantum devices.

Reconstructing the Hamiltonian of a quantum system is an essential task for characterizing and certifying quantum processors and simulators. Existing techniques either rely on projective measurements of the system before and after coherent time evolution and do not explicitly reconstruct the full time-dependent Hamiltonian or interrupt evolution for tomography. Here, we experimentally demonstrate that an a priori unknown, time-dependent Hamiltonian can be reconstructed from continuous weak measurements concurrent with coherent time evolution in a system of two superconducting transmons coupled by a flux-tunable coupler. In contrast to previous work, our technique does not require interruptions, which would distort the recovered Hamiltonian. We introduce an algorithm, which recovers the Hamiltonian and density matrix from an incomplete set of continuous measurements, and demonstrate that it reliably extracts amplitudes of a variety of single-qubit and entangling two-qubit Hamiltonians. We further demonstrate how this technique reveals deviations from a theoretical control Hamiltonian, which would otherwise be missed by conventional techniques. Our work opens up novel applications for continuous weak measurements, such as studying nonidealities in gates, certifying analog quantum simulators, and performing quantum metrology.

The technological development of hardware heading toward universal fault-tolerant quantum computation requires a large-scale processing unit with high performance. While fluxonium qubits are promising with high coherence and large anharmonicity, their scalability has not been systematically explored. In this work, we propose a superconducting quantum information processor based on compact high-coherence fluxoniums with suppressed crosstalk, reduced design complexity, improved operational efficiency, high-fidelity gates, and resistance to parameter fluctuations. In this architecture, the qubits are readout dispersively using individual resonators connected to a common bus and manipulated via combined on-chip RF and DC control lines, both of which can be designed to have low crosstalk. A multi-path coupling approach enables exchange interactions between the high-coherence computational states and at the same time suppresses the spurious static ZZ rate, leading to fast and high-fidelity entangling gates. We numerically investigate the cross resonance controlled-NOT and the differential AC-Stark controlled-Z operations, revealing low gate error for qubit-qubit detuning bandwidth of up to 1 GHz. Our study on frequency crowding indicates high fabrication yield for quantum processors consisting of over thousands of qubits. In addition, we estimate low resource overhead to suppress logical error rate using the XZZX surface code. These results promise a scalable quantum architecture with high performance for the pursuit of universal quantum computation.

Progress towards the realization of quantum computers requires persistent advances in their constituent building blocks—qubits. Novel qubit platforms that simultaneously embody long coherence, fast operation and large scalability offer compelling advantages in the construction of quantum computers and many other quantum information systems1–3. Electrons, ubiquitous elementary particles of non-zero charge, spin and mass, have commonly been perceived as paradigmatic local quantum information carriers. Despite superior controllability and configurability, their practical performance as qubits through either motional or spin states depends critically on their material environment3–5. Here we report our experimental realization of a qubit platform based on isolated single electrons trapped on an ultraclean solid neon surface in vacuum6–13. By integrating an electron trap in a circuit quantum electrodynamics architecture14–20, we achieve strong coupling between the motional states of a single electron and a single microwave photon in an on-chip superconducting resonator. Qubit gate operations and dispersive readout are implemented to measure the energy relaxation time T1 of 15 μs and phase coherence time T2 over 200 ns. These results indicate that the electron-on-solid-neon qubit already performs near the state of the art for a charge qubit21. A solid-state single-electron qubit platform is demonstrated based on trapping and manipulating isolated single electrons on an ultraclean solid neon surface in vacuum, which performs near the state of the art for a charge qubit.

Long B. Nguyen, 2, ∗ Gerwin Koolstra, 2 Yosep Kim, 2, † Alexis Morvan, 2, ‡ Trevor Chistolini, Shraddha Singh, 4 Konstantin N. Nesterov, Christian Jünger, 2 Larry Chen, Zahra Pedramrazi, 2 Bradley K. Mitchell, 2 John Mark Kreikebaum, 6, ‡ Shruti Puri, 4 David I. Santiago, 2 and Irfan Siddiqi 2, 6 Computational Research Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, California 94720, USA Department of Physics, University of California, Berkeley, California 94720, USA Department of Applied Physics, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut 06511, USA Yale Quantum Institute, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut 06511, USA Bleximo Corp., Berkeley, California 94720, USA Materials Science Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, California 94720, USA

Weak measurements of a superconducting qubit produce noisy voltage signals that are weakly correlated with the qubit state. To recover individual quantum trajectories from these noisy signals, traditional methods require slow qubit dynamics and substantial prior information in the form of calibration experiments. Monitoring rapid qubit dynamics, e.g. during quantum gates, requires more complicated methods with increased demand for prior information. Here, we experimentally demonstrate an alternative method for accurately tracking rapidly driven superconducting qubit trajectories that uses a Long-Short Term Memory (LSTM) artificial neural network with minimal prior information. Despite few training assumptions, the LSTM produces trajectories that include qubit-readout resonator correlations due to a finite detection bandwidth. In addition to revealing rotated measurement eigenstates and a reduced measurement rate in agreement with theory for a fixed drive, the trained LSTM also correctly reconstructs evolution for an unknown drive with rapid modulation. Our work enables new applications of weak measurements with faster or initially unknown qubit dynamics, such as the diagnosis of coherent errors in quantum gates.

The promise of quantum computing has driven a persistent quest for new qubit platforms with long coherence, fast operation, and large scalability. Electrons, ubiquitous elementary particles of nonzero charge, spin, and mass, have commonly been perceived as paradigmatic local quantum information carriers. Despite superior controllability and configurability, their practical performance as qubits via either motional or spin states depends critically on their material environment. Here we report our experimental realization of a new qubit platform based upon isolated single electrons trapped on an ultraclean solid neon surface in vacuum. By integrating an electron trap in a circuit quantum electrodynamics architecture, we achieve strong coupling between the motional states of a single electron and a single microwave photon in an on-chip superconducting resonator. Qubit gate operations and dispersive readout are implemented to measure the energy relaxation time $T_1$ of 15$\mu$s and phase coherence time $T_2$ over 200ns. These results indicate that the electron-on-solid-neon qubit already performs near the state of the art as a charge qubit.

Xianjing Zhou, Gerwin Koolstra, Xufeng Zhang, Ge Yang, Xu Han, Brennan Dizdar, Divan Ralu, Wei Guo, 6 Kater W. Murch, ∗ David I. Schuster, 8 and Dafei Jin † Center for Nanoscale Materials, Argonne National Laboratory, Argonne, Illinois 60439, USA Computational Research Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, California 94720, USA Laboratory for Nuclear Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA James Franck Institute and Department of Physics, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois 60637, USA National High Magnetic Field Laboratory, Tallahassee, Florida 32310, USA Department of Mechanical Engineering, FAMU-FSU College of Engineering, Florida State University, Tallahassee, Florida 32310, USA Department of Physics, Washington University in St. Louis, St. Louis, Missouri 63130, USA Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois 60637, USA (Dated: August 8, 2021)

Machine learning (ML) is a promising approach for performing challenging quantum-information tasks such as device characterization, calibration and control. ML models can train directly on the data produced by a quantum device while remaining agnostic to the quantum nature of the learning task. However, these generic models lack physical interpretability and usually require large datasets in order to learn accurately. Here we incorporate features of quantum mechanics in the design of our ML approach to characterize the dynamics of a quantum device and learn device parameters. This physics-inspired approach outperforms physics-agnostic recurrent neural networks trained on numerically generated and experimental data obtained from continuous weak measurement of a driven superconducting transmon qubit. This demonstration shows how leveraging domain knowledge improves the accuracy and efficiency of this characterization task, thus laying the groundwork for more scalable characterization techniques.