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Noise spectroscopy through dynamical decoupling with a superconducting flux qubit

Nature Physics volume 7, pages 565–570 (2011)Cite this article

Abstract

Quantum coherence in natural and artificial spin systems is fundamental to applications ranging from quantum information science to magnetic-resonance imaging and identification. Several multipulse control sequences targeting generalized noise models have been developed to extend coherence by dynamically decoupling a spin system from its noisy environment. In any particular implementation, however, the efficacy of these methods is sensitive to the specific frequency distribution of the noise, suggesting that these same pulse sequences could also be used to probe the noise spectrum directly. Here we demonstrate noise spectroscopy by means of dynamical decoupling using a superconducting qubit with energy-relaxation time T1=12 μs. We first demonstrate that dynamical decoupling improves the coherence time T2 in this system up to the T2=2 T1 limit (pure dephasing times exceeding 100 μs), and then leverage its filtering properties to probe the environmental noise over a frequency (f) range 0.2–20 MHz, observing a 1/fα distribution with α<1. The characterization of environmental noise has broad utility for spin-resonance applications, enabling the design of optimized coherent-control methods, promoting device and materials engineering, and generally improving coherence.

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Figure 1: Qubit device and characterization.
Figure 2: Dynamical-decoupling pulse sequences.
Figure 3: Dephasing under the CPMG sequence.
Figure 4: Decoherence during driven dynamics.
Figure 5: Noise-power spectral density (PSD).

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Acknowledgements

We gratefully acknowledge T. Orlando for support in all aspects of this work. We appreciate M. Biercuk, J. Clarke, L. Levitov and S. Lloyd for discussions, and P. Forn-Diaz and S. Valenzuela for comments on the manuscript. We thank P. Murphy and the LTSE team at MIT Lincoln Laboratory for technical assistance. This work was sponsored by the US Government, the Laboratory for Physical Sciences, the National Science Foundation and the Funding Program for World-Leading Innovative R&D on Science and Technology (FIRST), CREST-JST, MEXT kakenhi ‘Quantum Cybernetics’. Opinions, interpretations, conclusions and recommendations are those of the author(s) and are not necessarily endorsed by the US Government.

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Author notes

  1. Khalil Harrabi

    Present address: Present address: Physics Department, King Fahd University of Petroleum & Minerals, Dhahran 31261, Saudi Arabia,

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Research Laboratory of Electronics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA

    Jonas Bylander, Simon Gustavsson & William D. Oliver

  2. Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA

    Fei Yan & David G. Cory

  3. The Institute of Physical and Chemical Research (RIKEN), Wako, Saitama 351-0198, Japan

    Fumiki Yoshihara, Khalil Harrabi, Yasunobu Nakamura & Jaw-Shen Tsai

  4. MIT Lincoln Laboratory, 244 Wood Street, Lexington, Massachusetts 02420, USA

    George Fitch & William D. Oliver

  5. Institute for Quantum Computing and Department of Chemistry, University of Waterloo, Ontario, N2L 3G1, Canada

    David G. Cory

  6. Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics, Waterloo, Ontario, N2J 2W9, Canada

    David G. Cory

  7. Green Innovation Research Laboratories, NEC Corporation, Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305-8501, Japan

    Yasunobu Nakamura & Jaw-Shen Tsai

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Contributions

F. Yoshihara, K.H., Y.N. and J-S.T. designed and fabricated the device. J.B. and S.G. carried out the experiments. G.F., S.G. and J.B. contributed to the software infrastructure. J.B., F. Yan, W.D.O. and Y.N. analysed the data and F. Yoshihara and D.G.C. provided feedback. J.B. and W.D.O. wrote the paper with feedback from all authors. W.D.O. supervised the project. All authors contributed to discussions during the conception, execution and interpretation of the experiments.

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Correspondence to Jonas Bylander.

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The authors declare no competing financial interests.

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Bylander, J., Gustavsson, S., Yan, F. et al. Noise spectroscopy through dynamical decoupling with a superconducting flux qubit. Nature Phys 7, 565–570 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1038/nphys1994

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