D-Wave Quantum Inc. (NYSE: QBTS) has made significant progress in the development of high coherence qubits, which is expected to have a profound impact on its future quantum technologies. As the world's first commercial supplier of quantum computers, D-Wave has designed and operated fluxonium qubits that demonstrate quantum properties comparable to the best reported in scientific literature.
The fluxonium qubit, pioneered by Michel Devoret and colleagues at Yale University in 2009, has gained attention as a promising candidate for next-generation gate model quantum computing architectures. Leveraging their expertise in building flux-like qubit quantum technologies, D-Wave explored the use of fluxonium in its own technology development efforts. Through manufacturing and testing fluxonium qubits in a 2-dimensional circuit geometry, D-Wave achieved impressive coherence properties with relaxation times exceeding 100 microseconds. These results align with the current state-of-the-art for similar qubits. Additionally, the effective temperature of D-Wave's fluxonium, measured at 18 millikelvin, ranks among the best reported in scientific literature for superconducting qubits.
Mark Johnson, SVP of quantum technologies and systems products at D-Wave, commented, "These results demonstrate that fluxonium is a viable candidate qubit for D-Wave's gate model quantum computing architectures. We have also discovered that fluxonium can address some of the known limitations of other superconducting gate model qubits. This breakthrough will significantly influence D-Wave's hardware development and further establish our technical leadership, showcasing our ability to design, manufacture, and operate high-coherence fluxonium qubits that rival the best in the world."
For more technical information on the high coherence fluxonium test circuits and their measurements, a detailed technical report can be accessed here: https://www.dwavesys.com/media/e42bbtcw/fluxonium-coherence_external.pdf
