Article abstract
Nature Physics 5, 48 - 53 (2009)
Published online: 30 November 2008 | doi:10.1038/nphys1151
Subject Categories: Techniques and instrumentation | Condensed-matter physics | Information theory and computation | Quantum physics
Superconducting nanocircuits for topologically protected qubits
Sergey Gladchenko1, David Olaya1, Eva Dupont-Ferrier1, Benoit Douçot2, Lev B. Ioffe1 & Michael E. Gershenson1
Abstract
For successful realization of a quantum computer, its building blocks—the individual qubits—should be simultaneously scalable and sufficiently protected from environmental noise. Recently, a novel approach to the protection of superconducting qubits has been proposed. The idea is to prevent errors at the hardware level, by building a fault-free logical qubit from 'faulty' physical qubits with properly engineered interactions between them. The decoupling of such a topologically protected logical qubit from local noises is expected to grow exponentially with the number of physical qubits. Here, we report on proof-of-concept experiments with a prototype device that consists of twelve physical qubits made of nanoscale Josephson junctions. We observed that owing to properly tuned quantum fluctuations, this qubit is protected against magnetic flux variations well beyond linear order, in agreement with theoretical predictions. These results suggest that topologically protected superconducting qubits are feasible.
- Department of Physics and Astronomy, Rutgers University, 136 Frelinghuysen Road, Piscataway, New Jersey 08854, USA
- Laboratoire de Physique Théorique et Hautes Energies, CNRS UMR 7589, Universités Paris 6 et 7, 4 place Jussieu, 75005 Paris, France
Correspondence to: Michael E. Gershenson1 e-mail: gersh@physics.rutgers.edu
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