Fast Logic with Slow Qubits: Microwave-Activated Controlled-Z Gate on Low-Frequency Fluxoniums

Abstract

We demonstrate a controlled-Z gate between capacitively coupled fluxonium qubits with transition frequencies $72.3~\textrm{MHz}$ and $136.3~\textrm{MHz}$. The gate is activated by a $61.6~\textrm{ns}$ long pulse at the frequency between non-computational transitions $|10\rangle - |20\rangle$ and $|11\rangle - |21\rangle$, during which the qubits complete only $4$ and $8$ Larmor periods, respectively. The measured gate error of $(8\pm1)\times 10^{-3}$ is limited by decoherence in the non-computational subspace, which will likely improve in the next generation devices. Although our qubits are about fifty times slower than transmons, the two-qubit gate is faster than microwave-activated gates on transmons, and the gate error is on par with the lowest reported. Architectural advantages of low-frequency fluxoniums include long qubit coherence time, weak hybridization in the computational subspace, suppressed residual $ZZ$-coupling rate (here $46~\mathrm{kHz}$), and absence of either excessive parameter matching or complex pulse shaping requirements.