Surpassing millisecond coherence in on chip superconducting quantum memories by optimizing materials and circuit design.

The performance of superconducting quantum circuits for quantum computing has advanced tremendously in recent decades; however, a comprehensive understanding of relaxation mechanisms does not yet exist. In this work, we utilize a multimode approach to characterizing energy losses in superconducting quantum circuits, with the goals of predicting device performance and improving coherence through materials, process, and circuit design optimization. Using this approach, we measure significant reductions in surface and bulk dielectric losses by employing a tantalum-based materials platform and annealed sapphire substrates. With this knowledge we predict the relaxation times of aluminum- and tantalum-based transmon qubits, and find that they are consistent with experimental results. We additionally optimize device geometry to maximize coherence within a coaxial tunnel architecture, and realize on-chip quantum memories with single-photon Ramsey times of 2.0 - 2.7 ms, limited by their energy relaxation times of 1.0 - 1.4 ms. These results demonstrate an advancement towards a more modular and compact coaxial circuit architecture for bosonic qubits with reproducibly high coherence.

Strong opto-electro-mechanical coupling in a silicon photonic crystal cavity.

We fabricate and characterize a microscale silicon opto-electromechanical system whose mechanical motion is coupled capacitively to an electrical circuit and optically via radiation pressure to a photonic crystal cavity. To achieve large electromechanical interaction strength, we implement an inverse shadow mask fabrication scheme which obtains capacitor gaps as small as 30 nm while maintaining a silicon surface quality necessary for minimizing optical loss. Using the sensitive optical read-out of the photonic crystal cavity, we characterize the linear and nonlinear capacitive coupling to the fundamental ω(m)/2π = 63 MHz in-plane flexural motion of the structure, showing that the large electromechanical coupling in such devices may be suitable for realizing efficient microwave-to-optical signal conversion.

Non-Markovian dynamics of a microcavity coupled to a waveguide in photonic crystals.

In this paper, the non-Markovian dynamics of a microcavity coupled to a waveguide in photonic crystals is studied based on a semi-finite tight binding model. Using the exact master equation, we solve analytically and numerically the general and exact solution of the non-Markovain dynamics for the cavity coupled to the waveguide in different coupling regime. A critical transition is revealed when the coupling increases between the cavity and the waveguide. In particular, the cavity field becomes dissipationless when the coupling strength goes beyond a critical value, as a manifestation of strong non-Markovian memory effect. The result also indicates that the cavity can maintain in a coherent state with arbitrary small number of photons when it strongly couples to the waveguide at very low temperature. These properties can be measured experimentally through the photon current flowing over the waveguide in photonic crystals.