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Perspective on superconducting qubit quantum computing

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Abstract

This perspective describes the history, scientific and technology developments of superconducting qubit-based quantum computers, which are currently dominant, particularly with industry vendors. Adopting an engineering viewpoint, it showcases the great diversity of technology options, explains how superconducting qubit chipsets are manufactured, describes some challenges with how qubits are driven by classical electronics, how to improve their fidelities and how their energetic footprint can be optimized. We also briefly describe the current status of so-called NISQ (noisy intermediate scale quantum) computers and the resource estimations to run their potential use cases, particularly for running quantum many-body physics simulations.

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Data Availability Statement

This manuscript has no associated data or the data will not be deposited. [Authors’ comment: There is no data provided with the paper since this is a review paper, not a paper with specific experimental results.]

Notes

  1. T1 is the qubit amplitude coherence time, which indicates the end of coherence of the qubits linked to a loss of amplitude (“energy relaxation”). T2 is the phase related coherence or time when some phase shift occurs, i.e. a rotation around the z axis in the Bloch sphere of the qubit state.

  2. Transmon is a diminutive of “Transmission line shunted plasmon oscillation circuit” created by Rob Schoelkopf, in other words, an oscillator circuit based on shunted Josephson junction. The shunt has become a capacitance that filters low frequencies. A plasmon is the collective behavior of free electrons of metals, here in the form of superconducting Cooper pairs.

  3. An X-Y addressing scheme would route signals to the qubit resonators from the edge of the chipset, X and Y corresponding to two orthogonal edges. You would then polynomialy reduce the number of resonators from N to \(\sqrt{N}\) with N being the number of qubits of a square matrix layout chipset.

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    Olivier Ezratty

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Communicated by Denis Lacroix.

Olivier Ezratty is a cofounder of the Quantum Energy Initiative.

Topical Issue—Quantum Computing in Low-Energy Nuclear Theory.

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Ezratty, O. Perspective on superconducting qubit quantum computing. Eur. Phys. J. A 59, 94 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1140/epja/s10050-023-01006-7

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