arXiv subjects

M. G. Vavilov

Publications and source records attributed to M. G. Vavilov.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2018

Measurement of a Superconducting Qubit with a Microwave Photon Counter

Fast, high-fidelity measurement is a key ingredient for quantum error correction. Conventional approaches to the measurement of superconducting qubits, involving linear amplification of a microwave probe tone followed by heterodyne detection at room temperature, do not scale well to large system sizes. Here we introduce an alternative approach to measurement based on a microwave photon counter. We demonstrate raw single-shot measurement fidelity of 92%. Moreover, we exploit the intrinsic damping of the counter to extract the energy released by the measurement process, allowing repeated high-fidelity quantum non-demolition measurements. Crucially, our scheme provides access to the classical outcome of projective quantum measurement at the millikelvin stage. In a future system, counter-based measurement could form the basis for a scalable quantum-to-classical interface.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2017

Quantum--Classical Interface Based on Single Flux Quantum Digital Logic

We describe an approach to the integrated control and measurement of a large-scale superconducting multiqubit circuit using a proximal coprocessor based on the Single Flux Quantum (SFQ) digital logic family. Coherent control is realized by irradiating the qubits directly with classical bitstreams derived from optimal control theory. Qubit measurement is performed by a Josephson photon counter, which provides access to the classical result of projective quantum measurement at the millikelvin stage. We analyze the power budget and physical footprint of the SFQ coprocessor and discuss challenges and opportunities associated with this approach.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2017

Effects of charge noise on a pulse-gated singlet-triplet $S-T_-$ qubit

We study the dynamics of a pulse-gated semiconductor double quantum dot qubit. In our experiments, the qubit coherence times are relatively long, but the visibility of the quantum oscillations is low. We show that these observations are consistent with a theory that incorporates decoherence arising from charge noise that gives rise to detuning fluctuations of the double dot. Because effects from charge noise are largest near the singlet-triplet avoided level crossing, the visibility of the oscillations are low when the singlet-triplet avoided level crossing occurs in the vicinity of the charge degeneracy point crossed during the manipulation, but there is only modest dephasing at the large detuning value at which the quantum phase accumulates. This theory agrees well with experimental data and predicts that the visibility can be increased greatly by appropriate tuning of the interdot tunneling rate.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2016

Phonon-Mediated Quasiparticle Poisoning of Superconducting Microwave Resonators

Nonequilibrium quasiparticles represent a significant source of decoherence in superconducting quantum circuits. Here we investigate the mechanism of quasiparticle poisoning in devices subjected to local quasiparticle injection. We find that quasiparticle poisoning is dominated by the propagation of pair-breaking phonons across the chip. We characterize the energy dependence of the timescale for quasiparticle poisoning. Finally, we observe that incorporation of extensive normal metal quasiparticle traps leads to a more than order of magnitude reduction in quasiparticle loss for a given injected quasiparticle power.

cond-mat.supr-con↗

arXiv2015

Magnetic penetration depth in disordered iron-based superconductors

We study the effect of disorder on the London penetration depth in iron-based superconductors. The theory is based on a two-band model with quasi-two-dimensional Fermi surfaces, which allows for the coexistence region in the phase diagram between magnetic and superconducting states in the presence of intraband and interband scattering. Within the quasiclassical approximation we derive and solve Eilenberger's equations, which include a weak external magnetic field, and provide analytical expressions for the penetration depth in the various limiting cases. A complete numerical analysis of the doping and temperature dependence of the London penetration depth reveals the crucial effect of disorder scattering, which is especially pronounced in the coexistence phase. The experimental implications of our results are discussed.

cond-mat.supr-con↗

arXiv2014

Accurate Qubit Control with Single Flux Quantum Pulses

We describe the coherent manipulation of harmonic oscillator and qubit modes using resonant trains of single flux quantum pulses in place of microwaves. We show that coherent rotations are obtained for pulse-to-pulse spacing equal to the period of the oscillator. We consider a protocol for preparing bright and dark harmonic oscillator pointer states. Next we analyze rotations of a two-state qubit system. We calculate gate errors due to timing jitter of the single flux quantum pulses and due to weak anharmonicity of the qubit. We show that gate fidelities in excess of 99.9% are achievable for sequence lengths of order 20 ns.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2014

Effect of SDW fluctuations on the specific heat jump in iron pnictides at a superconducting transition

Measurements of the specific heat jump at the onset of superconducting transition in the iron-pnictide compounds revealed strong variation of its magnitude as a function of doping that is peaked near the optimal doping. We show that this behavior is direct manifestation of the coexistence between spin-density-wave and superconducting orders and the peak originates from thermal fluctuations of the spin-density-waves near the end point of the coexistence phase -- a tetracritical point. Thermal fluctuations result in a power-law dependence of the specific heat jump that is stronger than the contribution of mass renormalization due to quantum fluctuations of spin-density-waves in the vicinity of the putative critical point beneath the superconducting dome.

cond-mat.supr-con↗

arXiv2013

Enhancement of the London penetration depth in pnictides at the onset of SDW order under superconducting dome

Recent measurements of the doping dependence of the London penetration depth λ(x) at low temperatures in clean samples of isovalent BaFe_2[As_(1-x)P_x]_2 at T<<Tc [Hashimoto et al., Science 336, 1554 (2012)] revealed a peak in λ(x) near optimal doping x=0.3. The observation of the peak at T<<Tc, points to the existence of the quantum critical point (QCP) beneath the superconducting dome. We associate such a QCP with the onset of a spin- density-wave order and show that the renormalization of λ(x) by critical magnetic fluctuations, gives rise to the observed feature. We argue that the case of pnictides is conceptually different from a one-component Galilean invariant Fermi liquid, for which correlation effects do not cause the renormalization of the London penetration depth at T=0.

cond-mat.supr-con↗

arXiv2012

Enhancement of $T_{c}$ by disorder in underdoped iron pnictides

We analyze how disorder affects the transition temperature $T_{c}$ of the $s^{+-}$superconducting state in the iron pnictides. The conventional wisdom is that $T_{c}$ should rapidly decrease with increasing inter-band non-magnetic impurity scattering, but we show that this behavior holds only in the overdoped region of the phase diagram. In the underdoped regime, where superconductivity emerges from a pre-existing magnetic state, disorder gives rise to two competing effects: breaking of the Cooper pairs, which tends to reduce $T_{c}$, and suppression of the itinerant magnetic order, which tends to bring $T_{c}$ up. We show that for a wide range of parameters the second effect wins, leading to an increase of $T_{c}$ with disorder in the coexistence state. Our results explain several recent experimental findings and provide another evidence for $s^{+-}$-pairing in the iron pnictides.

cond-mat.supr-con↗

arXiv2011

Phase diagram of iron-pnictides if doping acts as a disorder

We obtain and analyze the phase diagram of doped iron-pnictides under the assumption that doping adds non-magnetic impurities to the system but does not change the densities of carriers. We show that the phase diagram is quite similar to the one obtained under the opposite rigid band assumption. In both cases, there is a phase where extended s+- superconductivity and antiferromagnetism co-exist. We evaluate the jump of the specific heat at the superconducting transition across the phase diagram and show that the jump is non-monotonic, with the maximum at the onset of the co-existence phase. Our results are in quantitative agreement with experiments on some iron-pnictides.

cond-mat.supr-con↗

arXiv2011

Specific heat jump at superconducting transition in the presence of Spin-Density-Wave in iron-pnictides

We analyze the magnitude of the specific heat jump ΔC at the superconducting transition temperature T_c in the situation when superconductivity develops in the pre-existing antiferromagnetic phase. We show that ΔC/T_c differs from the BCS value and is peaked at the tri-critical point where this coexistence phase first emerges. Deeper in the magnetic phase, the onset of coexistence, T_c, drops and ΔC/T_c decreases, roughly as ΔC/T_c \propto T^2_c at intermediate T_c and exponentially at the lowest T_c, in agreement with the observed behavior of ΔC/T_c in iron-based superconductors.

cond-mat.supr-con↗

arXiv2010

Phonon-induced resistance oscillations of two-dimensional electron systems drifting with supersonic velocities

We present a theory of the phonon-assisted nonlinear dc transport of 2D electrons in high Landau levels. The nonlinear dissipative resistivity displays quantum magneto-oscillations governed by two parameters which are proportional to the Hall drift velocity $v_H$ of electrons in electric field and the speed of sound $s$. In the subsonic regime, $v_H s$, the amplitude of oscillations saturates with lowering temperature, while the subsonic region displays exponential suppression of the phonon-assisted oscillations with temperature.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2010

Superconductivity and spin-density-waves in multi-band metals

We present a detailed description of two-band quasi-2D metals with s-wave superconducting (SC) and antiferromagnetic spin-density wave (SDW) correlations. We present a general approach and use it to investigate the influence of the difference between the shapes and the areas of the two Fermi surfaces on the phase diagram. In particular, we determine the conditions for the co-existence of SC and SDW orders at different temperatures and dopings. We argue that a conventional s-wave SC order co-exists with SDW order only at very low $T$ and in a very tiny range of parameters. An extended s-wave superconductivity, for which SC gap changes sign between the two bands, co-exists with antiferromagnetic SDW over a much wider range of parameters and temperatures, but even for this SC order the regions of SDW and SC can still be separated by a first order transition. We show that the co-existence range becomes larger if SDW order is incommensurate. We apply our results to iron-based pnictide materials, in some of which co-existence of SDW and SC orders has been detected.

cond-mat.supr-con↗

arXiv2009

Coexistence between superconducting and spin density wave states in iron-based superconductors: Ginzburg-Landau analysis

We consider the interplay between superconducting (SC) and commensurate spin-density-wave (SDW) orders in iron-pnictides by analyzing a multiple order Ginzburg-Landau free energy. We are particularly interested in whether the doping-induced transition between the two states is first order, or the two pure phases are separated by an intermediate phase with coexisting SC and SDW orders. For perfect nesting, the two orders do not coexist, because SDW order, which comes first, gaps the full Fermi surface leaving no space for SC to develop. When nesting is not perfect due to either ellipticity of electron bands or doping-induced difference in chemical potentials for holes and electrons, SDW order still leaves modified Fermi surfaces for not too strong SDW magnetism and the SC order may develop. We show that the two orders coexist only when certain relations between ellipticity and doping are met. In particular, in a compensated metal, ellipticity alone is not sufficient for coexistence of the two orders.

cond-mat.supr-con↗

arXiv2009

Non-linear Magnetoresistance Oscillations in Intensely Irradiated Two-Dimensional Electron Systems Induced by Multi-Photon Processes

We report on magneto-oscillations in differential resistivity of a two-dimensional electron system subject to intense microwave radiation. The period of these oscillations is determined not only by microwave frequency but also by its intensity. A theoretical model based on quantum kinetics at high microwave power captures all important characteristics of this phenomenon which is strongly nonlinear in microwave intensity. Our results demonstrate a crucial role of the multi-photon processes near the cyclotron resonance and its harmonics in the presence of strong dc electric field and offer a unique way to reliably determine the intensity of microwaves acting on electrons.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2009

Reduced effect of impurities on the universal pairing scale in the cuprates

We consider the effect of non-magnetic impurities on the onset temperature $T^*$ for the $d-$wave pairing in spin-fluctuation scenario for the cuprates. We analyze intermediate coupling regime when the magnetic correlation length $ξ/a >1$ and the dimensionless coupling $u$ is O(1). In the clean limit, $T^* \approx 0.02 v_f/a$ in this parameter range, and weakly depends on $ξ$ and $u$. We found numerically that this universal pairing scale is also quite robust with respect to impurities: the scattering rate $Γ_{cr}$ needed to bring $T^*$ down to zero is about 4 times larger than in weak coupling, in good quantitative agreement with experiments. We provide analytical reasoning for this result.

cond-mat.supr-con↗

arXiv2009

Mechanisms of the microwave photoconductivity in 2D electron systems with mixed disorder

We present a systematic study of the microwave-induced oscillations in the magnetoresistance of a 2D electron gas for mixed disorder including both short-range and long-range components. The obtained photoconductivity tensor contains contributions of four distinct transport mechanisms. We show that the photoresponse depends crucially on the relative weight of the short-range component of disorder. Depending on the properties of disorder, the theory allows one to identify the temperature range within which the photoresponse is dominated by one of the mechanisms analyzed in the paper.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2009

Coexistence of superconductivity and a spin density wave in pnictides: Gap symmetry and nodal lines

We investigate the effect of a spin-density wave (SDW) on $s_{\pm}$ superconductivity in Fe-based superconductors. We show that, contrary to the common wisdom, no nodes open at the new, reconnected Fermi surfaces when the hole and electron pockets fold down in the SDW state, despite the fact that the $s_{\pm}$ gap changes sign between the two pockets. Instead, the order parameter preserves its sign along the newly formed Fermi surfaces. The familiar experimental signatures of an $s_{\pm}$ symmetry are still preserved, although they appear in a mathematically different way. For a regular $s$ case ($s_{++})$ the nodes do appear in the SDW state. This distinction suggests a novel simple way to experimentally separate an $s_{\pm}$ state from a regular $s$ in the pnictides. We argue that recently published thermal conductivity data in the coexisting state are consistent with the $s_{\pm},$ but not the $s_{++}$ state.

cond-mat.supr-con↗