Hardware-Efficient Microwave-Activated Tunable Coupling between Superconducting Qubits

Generating high-fidelity, tunable entanglement between qubits is crucial for realizing gate-based quantum computation. In superconducting circuits, tunable interactions are often implemented using flux tunable qubits or coupling elements, adding control complexity and noise sources. Here, we realize a tunable ZZ interaction between two transmon qubits with fixed frequencies and fixed coupling, induced by driving both transmons off resonantly. We show tunable coupling over 1 order of magnitude larger than the static coupling, and change the sign of the interaction, enabling cancellation of the idle coupling. Further, this interaction is amenable to large quantum processors: the drive frequency can be flexibly chosen to avoid spurious transitions, and because both transmons are driven, it is resilient to microwave cross talk. We apply this interaction to implement a controlled phase (CZ) gate with a gate fidelity of 99.43(1)% as measured by cycle benchmarking, and we find the fidelity is limited by incoherent errors.

Automated summary

In this study, a tunable ZZ interaction between two fixed-frequency and fixed-coupling transmon qubits is achieved, with adjustable coupling range larger than static coupling and changeable sign of interaction. This interaction is suitable for large quantum processors, with flexible drive frequency choice and resilience to microwave cross talk, enabling the implementation of a controlled phase (CZ) gate with high fidelity.