Distinguishing Coherent and Thermal Photon Noise in a Circuit Quantum Electrodynamical System

In the cavity-QED architecture, photon number fluctuations from residual cavity photons cause qubit dephasing due to the ac Stark effect. These unwanted photons originate from a variety of sources, such as thermal radiation, leftover measurement photons, and cross talk. Using a capacitively shunted...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Yan, Fei, Campbell, Daniel Lawrence, Krantz, Philip Johan Erik, Kjaergaard, Morten, Kim, David M., Yoder, Jonilyn Longenecker, Hover, David J., Sears, Adam P., Kerman, Andrew J, Orlando, Terry Philip, Gustavsson, Simon, Oliver, William D
Other Authors: Lincoln Laboratory
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: American Physical Society 2018
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/116815
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4674-2806
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8553-3353
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4436-6886
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7069-1025
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8041-0824
Description
Summary:In the cavity-QED architecture, photon number fluctuations from residual cavity photons cause qubit dephasing due to the ac Stark effect. These unwanted photons originate from a variety of sources, such as thermal radiation, leftover measurement photons, and cross talk. Using a capacitively shunted flux qubit coupled to a transmission line cavity, we demonstrate a method that identifies and distinguishes coherent and thermal photons based on noise-spectral reconstruction from time-domain spin-locking relaxometry. Using these measurements, we attribute the limiting dephasing source in our system to thermal photons rather than coherent photons. By improving the cryogenic attenuation on lines leading to the cavity, we successfully suppress residual thermal photons and achieve T₁-limited spin-echo decay time. The spin-locking noise-spectroscopy technique allows broad frequency access and readily applies to other qubit modalities for identifying general asymmetric nonclassical noise spectra.