Abstract

Superconducting circuits are macroscopic in size but have generic quantum properties such as quantized energy levels, superposition of states, and entanglement, all of which are more commonly associated with atoms. Superconducting quantum bits (qubits) form the key component of these circuits. Their quantum state is manipulated by using electromagnetic pulses to control the magnetic flux, the electric charge or the phase difference across a Josephson junction (a device with nonlinear inductance and no energy dissipation). As such, superconducting qubits are not only of considerable fundamental interest but also might ultimately form the primitive building blocks of quantum computers.

1. Department of Physics,366 LeConte Hall, University of California, Berkeley, California 94720, USA.
2. Materials Sciences Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, 1 Cyclotron Road, Berkeley, California 94720, USA.
3. Institute for Quantum Computing, University of Waterloo, 200 University Avenue West, Waterloo, Ontario N2L 3G1, Canada.

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