How coherent are Josephson junctions?

Abstract

Attaining sufficient coherence is a requirement for realizing a large-scale quantum computer. We present a new implementation of a superconducting transmon qubit that is strongly coupled to a three-dimensional superconducting cavity. We observe a reproducible increase in the coherence times of qubit (both $T_1$ and $T_2$ > 10 microseconds) and cavity ($T_{cav}$ ~ 50 microseconds) by more than an order of magnitude compared to the current state-of-art superconducting qubits. This enables the study of the stability and quality of Josephson junctions at precisions exceeding one part per million. Surprisingly, we see no evidence for $1/f$ critical current noise. At elevated temperatures, we observe the dissipation due to a small density (< 1 - 10 ppm) of thermally-excited quasiparticles. The results suggest that the overall quality of Josephson junctions will allow error rates of a few $10^{-4}$, approaching the error correction threshold.