SQMS Center

Science Highlights

Oxygen vacancies in niobium pentoxide: a key source of loss in Nb superconducting qubits

SQMS researchers uncover loss mechanisms in the surface oxide, paving the way for mitigation strategies to enhance qubit performance.

Quasiparticle Spectroscopy from Superfluid Density Measurements

Precision measurements of the London penetration depth in devices provide access to low-energy states inside the superconducting gap, which are the major fingerprints of quantum decoherence.

Deepest Sensitivity to Wavelike Dark Photon Dark Matter with SRF Cavities

Fermilab’s expertise in superconducting radiofrequency cavities leads to extremely sensitive dark matter detectors, an order of magnitude more sensitive than previous efforts.

Revealing why tantalum oxide is less lossy than niobium oxides

SQMS scientists unravel the structural difference and formation mechanism of tantalum and niobium oxides in superconducting qubits

Correlating structural imperfections and resonator performance

SQMS scientists explore how fabrication methods affect the microstructure and performance of superconducting coplanar waveguide resonators

Saving qubits from lossy oxides

Unique qubit fabrication technique enables systematic improvements in performance of superconducting devices for quantum computing, communication, and sensing

Identifying potential nanoscale sources of decoherence in Nb superconducting qubits

Insights regarding defects in the surface oxide help inform new methods for improving qubit coherence 

Disentangling the sources of ionizing radiation in a typical qubit chip

Identifying the sources of radioactivity enables the development of appropriate strategies for their mitigation

Benchmarking variational quantum eigensolvers for the Kitaev model

Advancing variational quantum algorithms on NISQ devices

Probing superconducting state properties of Nb films used in superconducting qubits

Studying superconducting state properties reveals material imperfections limiting qubit coherence 

On the hunt for dark matter, with entangled haloscopes

Exploring the role of entanglement for next-generation detector technology, with applications to fundamental physics