Rapid High-Fidelity Single-Shot Dispersive Readout of Superconducting Qubits

The speed of quantum gates and measurements is a decisive factor for the overall fidelity of quantum protocols when performed on physical qubits with a finite coherence time. Reducing the time required to distinguish qubit states with high fidelity is, therefore, a critical goal in quantum-information science. The state-of-the-art readout of superconducting qubits is based on the dispersive interaction with a readout resonator. Here, we bring this technique to its current limit and demonstrate how the careful design of system parameters leads to fast and high-fidelity measurements without affecting qubit coherence. We achieve this result by increasing the dispersive-interaction strength, by choosing an optimal linewidth of the readout resonator, by employing a Purcell filter, and by utilizing phase-sensitive parametric amplification. In our experiment, we measure 98.25% readout fidelity in only 48 ns, when minimizing readout time, and 99.2% in 88 ns, when maximizing the fidelity, limited predominantly by the qubit lifetime of 7.6 mu s. The presented scheme is also expected to be suitable for integration into a multiplexed readout architecture.