Rhenium Transmon Relaxation Times Up To 5 GHz

They demonstrate rhenium on sapphire as a promising material platform for superconducting circuits through the realization of transmons with mean relaxation times T1 up to at 5 GHz. The team, led by Robert J. Schoelkopf, focused on rhenium due to its ability to suppress native oxide formation, addressing a long-hypothesized source of performance-limiting dielectric loss in superconducting circuits. Their work demonstrates rhenium on sapphire as a promising material platform, supported by a detailed loss characterization study. Further investigation may solidify rhenium’s position as a leading material for extending qubit decoherence times. Rhenium films deposited on sapphire enabled the creation of superconducting transmons exhibiting mean relaxation times, T1, reaching 5 GHz. This performance represents an advancement in qubit coherence, a critical metric for the speed and complexity of quantum computations. The team’s work directly addresses dielectric loss, a long-recognized limitation in superconducting circuit performance, by focusing on materials that minimize loss at interfaces. The choice of rhenium stemmed from its unique…