Anharmonicity of a superconducting qubit with a few-mode Josephson junction

Coherent operation of gate-voltage-controlled hybrid transmon qubits (gatemons) based on semiconductor nanowires was recently demonstrated. Here we experimentally investigate the anharmonicity in epitaxial InAs-Al Josephson junctions, a key parameter for their use as a qubit. Anharmonicity is found to be reduced by roughly a factor of 2 compared to conventional metallic junctions and dependent on gate voltage. Experimental results are consistent with a theoretical model, indicating that Josephson coupling is mediated by a small number of highly transmitting modes in the semiconductor junction.