Yajur Preetham L&S Math & Physical Sciences
High Frequency Interconnects for Superconducting Circuits
Quantum computers built from superconducting circuits face a fundamental scaling problem: each qubit requires its own control wires running into an extremely cold refrigerator, and those wires act as heat loads that make it progressively harder to keep the system cold as you add more qubits. Also, the qubits operate at around 5 GHz, where thermal photons are only suppressed at extremely low temperatures (~10 mK), meaning the refrigerator must be kept extraordinarily cold to prevent stray photons from decohering the qubits. This project aims to develop high-frequency interconnects that push communication and readout channels up to 40 GHz. At higher frequencies, quantum signals are far more robust against heat, so thermally demanding operations like qubit readout can be moved to warmer parts of the fridge, reducing strain on the coldest stage and allowing far more qubits in a single system. The higher frequency also increases bandwidth, allowing far more qubits to operate simultaneously than before. Finally, since these signals are more heat resistant, they can link superconducting qubits with other quantum systems like neutral atoms, enabling hybrid quantum computing architectures.
Message To Sponsor
Thank you for giving me the opportunity to spend a summer researching something I've always wanted to learn but never got the chance to until now. Superconducting circuits are some of the earliest and most developed qubit platforms both in industry and academia, yet there is still a huge amount of progress needing to be made in order to make them scalable. I'm excited to work at the forefront of making this a reality and can't wait for what the future holds!