Improving Josephson junction reproducibility for superconducting quantum circuits: junction area fluctuation.

Josephson superconducting qubits and parametric amplifiers are prominent examples of superconducting quantum circuits that have shown rapid progress in recent years. As such devices become more complex, the requirements for reproducibility of their electrical properties across a chip are being tightened. Critical current of the Josephson junction Ic is the essential electrical parameter in a chip. So, its variation is to be minimized. According to the Ambegaokar-Baratoff formula, critical current is related to normal-state resistance, which can be measured at room temperature. In this study, we focused on the dominant source of non-uniformity for the Josephson junction critical current-junction area variation. We optimized Josephson junction fabrication process and demonstrated resistance variation of 9.8-4.4% and 4.8-2.3% across 22 × 22 mm2 and 5 × 10 mm2 chip areas, respectively. For a wide range of junction areas from 0.008 to 0.12 µm2, we ensure a small linewidth standard deviation of 4 nm measured over 4500 junctions with linear dimensions from 80 to 680 nm. We found that the dominate source of junction area variation limiting [Formula: see text] reproducibility is the imperfection of the evaporation system. The developed fabrication process was tested on superconducting highly coherent transmon qubits (T1 > 100 µs) and a nonlinear asymmetric inductive element parametric amplifier.

Optimization of shadow evaporation and oxidation for reproducible quantum Josephson junction circuits.

The most commonly used physical realization of superconducting qubits for quantum circuits is a transmon. There are a number of superconducting quantum circuits applications, where Josephson junction critical current reproducibility over a chip is crucial. Here, we report on a robust chip scale Al/AlOx/Al junctions fabrication method due to comprehensive study of shadow evaporation and oxidation steps. We experimentally demonstrate the evidence of optimal Josephson junction electrodes thickness, deposition rate and deposition angle, which ensure minimal electrode surface and line edge roughness. The influence of oxidation method, pressure and time on critical current reproducibility is determined. With the proposed method we demonstrate Al/AlOx/Al junction fabrication with the critical current variation [Formula: see text] less than 3.9% (from 150 × 200 to 150 × 600 nm2 area) and 7.7% (for 100 × 100 nm2 area) over 20 × 20 mm2 chip. Finally, we fabricate separately three 5 × 10 mm2 chips with 18 transmon qubits (near 4.3 GHz frequency) showing less than 1.9% frequency variation between qubits on different chips. The proposed approach and optimization criteria can be utilized for a robust wafer-scale superconducting qubit circuits fabrication.