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DOE OSTI2025

Pushing the Boundaries of Coherence in Superconducting Quantum Systems at the SQMS Center for Computing, Sensing, and Metrology

This talk will highlight recent advances at the SQMS Center in understanding and mitigating decoherence in superconducting quantum systems, focusing on both transmon qubits and 3D superconducting cavities. I will present results from systematic studies of materials and devices, aimed at identifying key sources of loss: including two-level systems (TLS), quasiparticles, and other noise mechanisms. These studies span microwave loss characterization in materials such as niobium, tantalum, aluminum, and their native oxides, as well as substrate losses in silicon and sapphire. Using both qubits and cavities, we disentangle subsystem contributions to loss and develop a hierarchy of mitigation strategies. Through these efforts, we have achieved transmon coherence times exceeding one millisecond. I will also present investigations into quasiparticle dynamics, including bursts observed in qubits located above ground and in the Gran Sasso underground laboratory. Additional studies explore temperature dependence to distinguish between TLS and quasiparticle losses, and reveal that applying a magnetic field can reduce temporal T1 fluctuations in transmons. Building on these results, we demonstrate a record-coherence two-cell cavity-qudit system with coherence times exceeding 20 milliseconds. By leveraging sideband interactions and error-resilient protocols including measurement-based correction and post-selection, we achieve high-fidelity quantum state control. This includes preparation of Fock states up to N = 20 with fidelities over 95%, and two-mode entanglement with coherence-limited fidelities reaching 99.9% after post-selection. These achievements position the SQMS platform as a powerful foundation for scalable quantum information processing and high-dimensional qudit encodings. Finally, I will discuss how these ultra-coherent systems are being deployed in emerging quantum sensing applications, including dark matter searches and gravitational wave detection.

Roy, Tanay [Fermilab]↗

DOE OSTI2026

Connection between classical and quantum descriptions of spin waves using quantum circuits

A quantum computing circuit is presented that approximates a single spin wave quantum on a linear chain of spin 1/2 particles described by a Heisenberg Hamiltonian. The circuit is a product state where each qubit represents a spin. The spin wave motion is represented by opening the cone angle using Y rotations and then adding progressive Z rotations along the chain to represent wave propagation. We show analytically that this product state yields the correct dispersion relation in the limit of an unbounded chain. This observation is confirmed using both a simulator and various quantum processors. The use of the quantum computing paradigm in this case does not lead to a computational advantage, but rather leads to a novel conceptual connection between classical and quantum descriptions of spin waves, and may also be useful for characterizing the error in quantum processors.

magnons↗

DOE OSTI2025

Classical Preoptimization Approach for ADAPT-VQE: Maximizing the Potential of High-Performance Computing Resources to Improve Quantum Simulation of Chemical Applications

The ADAPT-VQE algorithm is a promising method for generating a compact ansatz based on derivatives of the underlying cost function, and it yields accurate predictions of electronic energies for molecules. In this work, we report the implementation and performance of ADAPT-VQE with our recently developed sparse wave function circuit solver (SWCS) in terms of accuracy and efficiency for molecular systems with up to 52 spin orbitals. The SWCS can be tuned to balance computational cost and accuracy, which extends the application of ADAPT-VQE for molecular electronic structure calculations to larger basis sets and a larger number of qubits. Using this tunable feature of the SWCS, we propose an alternative optimization procedure for ADAPT-VQE to reduce the computational cost of the optimization. Furthermore, by preoptimizing a quantum simulation with a parametrized ansatz generated with ADAPT-VQE/SWCS, we aim to utilize the power of classical high-performance computing in order to minimize the work required on noisy intermediate-scale quantum hardware, which offers a promising path toward demonstrating quantum advantage for chemical applications.

ADAPT-VQE↗

DOE OSTI2025

Simulating large one-dimensional neutral-atom quantum systems

While abstract models of quantum computation assume a closed system of two-level states, practical quantum devices inevitably couple to the environment in some way, creating sources of noise. Understanding the tolerance to noise of specific quantum algorithms run on specific devices is important for determining the feasibility of quantum computing in the current noisy intermediate-scale quantum era. Of particular interest is understanding the noise sensitivity of these devices as more qubits are added to the system. Classical simulations are a useful tool to understand the effects of this noise, but direct classical simulations of open quantum systems are burdened by an exponentially growing cost in the number of qubits and a large local Hilbert space dimension. For onedimensional, shallow circuits, using tensor networks can replace this exponential cost with a linear one and simulate far wider systems than what would normally be available. In this paper, we describe a tensor network simulation of a neutral atom quantum system under the presence of noise, while introducing a purity-preserving truncation technique that compromises between the simplicity of the matrix product state and the positivity of the matrix product density operator. We apply this simulation to a near-optimized iteration of the quantum approximate optimization algorithm on a transverse field Ising model in order to investigate the influence of large system sizes on the performance of the algorithm. We find that while circuits with a large number of qubits fail more often under noise that depletes the qubit population, their outputs on a successful measurement are just as robust under Rydberg atom dissipation or qubit dephasing as smaller systems. However, such circuits might not perform as well under coherent multiqubit errors such as Rydberg atom crosstalk. We also find that the optimized parameters are especially robust to noise, suggesting that a noisier quantum system can be used to find the optimal parameters before switching to a cleaner system for measurements of observables.

Allen, James↗

DOE OSTI2026

Harnessing the Spin-Flip Radiative Lifetimes of Optically Addressable Molecular Qubits

Optically addressable molecular qubits based on spin-flip (SF) emissive transitions are promising candidates for quantum technologies due to their sharp luminescence lines and tunable optical-spin interfaces. Yet, the microscopic mechanisms controlling the spin-flip radiative lifetime of SF emitters, a key property for efficient spin readout, remain largely unexplored. Here, we present a computational study of several Cr 4+ and Mo 4+ pseudotetrahedral molecular qubits, and we identify chemical and structural features that influence the transition dipole moment associated with the SF emission, which, in turn, governs the SF radiative lifetime. We find that the magnitude of the dipole moment is governed by the multireference character of the spin-flip excited-state wave function, which can be modulated by tuning the energy separation between the d orbitals of the metal and the spin-pairing energy. Both parameters are sensitive to molecular symmetry, metal–ligand bond covalency, and bond anisotropy and leave room for modulation via ligand and metal design, as well as applied strain, which is relevant for sensing applications. Our findings provide a mechanistic framework for understanding and tuning the spin-flip radiative behavior of molecular qubits and SF emitters that may guide future advances in quantum information science.

molecular qubits↗

DOE OSTI2025

Efficient Floating-Point Arithmetic on Fault-Tolerant Quantum Computers

We propose a novel floating-point encoding scheme that builds on prior work involving fixed-point encodings. We encode floating-point numbers using Two's Complement fixed-point mantissas and Two's Complement integral exponents. We used our proposed approach to develop quantum algorithms for fundamental arithmetic operations, such as bit-shifting, reciprocation, multiplication, and addition. We prototyped and investigated the performance of the floating-point encoding scheme on quantum computer simulations by performing reciprocation on randomly drawn inputs and by solving first-order ordinary differential equations, while varying the number of qubits in the encoding. We observed rapid convergence to the exact solutions as we increased the number of qubits and a significant reduction in the number of ancilla qubits required for reciprocation when compared with similar approaches.

Serrallés, José Cruz [Weill Cornell Med. Coll.]↗

DOE OSTI2026

Efficient Routing of Quantum LDPC Codes on Programmable 2D Toric Architectures

Quantum low-density parity-check codes are promising candidates towards scalable fault-tolerant quantum computation. Among these, bivariate bicycle (BB) codes offer superior encoding rates and large code distance compared to surface codes. However, their requirement on long-range stabilizer measurements poses significant challenges for implementation on realistic hardware with limited connectivity, such as superconducting circuit platforms. In this work, we introduce a novel hardware-software co-design that leverages a programmable communication network architecture to address these limitations. Our approach utilizes a 2D toric network of oscillators as a flexible communication fabric linking qubits at each site. Such architecture significantly reduces the number of long-range couplers required from O ( n ) to O (√ n ). Dual-rail qubits, along with native gates including Swap-Wait-Swap gates and beamsplitter SWAPs, ensure that long-range two-qubit gates can be executed with high fidelity and low latency. To further enhance performance, our qubit layout and routing algorithm utilize symmetries of the codes and enable maximum parallelism for long-range two-qubit gates, maintaining a low syndrome extraction cycle duration and scalability over the code length. We perform circuit-level simulation with realistic noise modeling based on experimental hardware parameters, observing an logical error rate per logical qubit per cycle of 3.06% for [[18,4,4]] BB code, 2.6× less than the existing experimental result. These findings provide a practical roadmap and identify key technological advancements needed to achieve low-overhead fault-tolerant quantum computing at scale.

Liu, Kun [Yale Univ., New Haven, CT (United States↗

DOE OSTI2025

Fast superconducting qubit control with subharmonic drives

Increasing the fidelity of single-qubit gates requires a combination of faster pulses and increased qubit coherence. However, these requirements can be contradictory. Additionally, increasing the drive power can heat the qubit’s environment and degrade coherence. In this work, we circumvent this issue and achieve rapid gates by pumping a transmon’s native Kerr at approximately one third of the qubit’s resonant frequency. The subharmonic Rabi rate of the process is proportional to applied drive amplitude cubed, allowing for rapid gates. In addition, we demonstrate that filtering can be used to protect the qubit’s coherence while performing rapid gates. Single qubit gates as short as 37.4 ns are demonstrated with fidelity of 99.91%. We present theoretical calculations indicating that drive induced multi-photon decay will not limit qubit lifetime; calculated power absorption also indicates that this technique could reduce cryostat heating for fast gates, a vital requirement for large-scale quantum computers.

Xia, Mingkang [Univ. of Pittsburgh, PA (United Sta↗

DOE OSTI2025

Nonunitary Variational Quantum Eigensolver with the Localized Active Space Method and Cost Mitigation

Accurately describing strongly correlated systems with affordable quantum resources remains a central challenge for quantum chemistry applications on near and intermediate term quantum computers. The localized active space self-consistent field (LASSCF) approximates the complete active space self-consistent field (CASSCF) by generating active space-based wave functions within specific fragments while treating interfragment correlation with mean-field approach, hence is computationally less expensive. Hardware-efficient ansatzes (HEA) offer affordable and shallower circuits, yet they often fail to capture the necessary correlation. Previously, Jastrow-factor-inspired nonunitary qubit operators were proposed to use with HEA for variational quantum eigensolver (VQE) calculations (so-called nuVQE), as they do not increase circuit depths and recover correlation beyond the mean-field level for Hartree–Fock initial states. Here, in this study, we explore running nuVQE with LASSCF as the initial state. The method, named LAS-nuVQE, is shown to recover interfragment correlations, reach chemical accuracy with a small number of gates (<70) in both H 4 and square cyclobutadiene (C 4 H 4 ), and produces more accurate energetics than its HEA counterparts at all circuit depths. To further address the inherent symmetry-breaking in HEA, we implemented spin-constrained LAS-nuVQE to extend the capabilities of HEA further and show spin-pure results for square cyclobutadiene. We also mitigate the increased measurement overhead of nuVQE via Pauli grouping and shot-frugal sampling, reducing measurement costs by up to 2 orders of magnitude compared to ungrouped operator, and show that one can achieve better accuracy with a small number of shots (10 3–4 ) per one expectation value calculation compared to noiseless simulations with one or two orders of magnitude more shots. Finally, wall clock time estimates show that, with our measurement mitigation protocols, nuVQE becomes a cheaper and more accurate alternative than vanilla VQE with HEA. Taken together, these developments illustrate a practical pathway toward performing multireference chemical simulations with accuracy and affordable resources on today’s quantum hardware, achieving both accuracy and affordability in challenging correlated systems.

Wang, Qiaohong [Univ. of Chicago, IL (United State↗

DOE OSTI2024

VAN-DAMME: GPU-accelerated and symmetry-assisted quantum optimal control of multi-qubit systems

We present an open-source software package, VAN-DAMME (Versatile Approaches to Numerically Design, Accelerate, and Manipulate Magnetic Excitations), for massively-parallelized quantum optimal control (QOC) calculations of multi-qubit systems. To enable large QOC calculations, the VAN-DAMME software package utilizes symmetry-based techniques with custom GPU-enhanced algorithms. This combined approach allows for the simultaneous computation of hundreds of matrix exponential propagators that efficiently leverage the intra-GPU parallelism found in high-performance GPUs. In addition, to maximize the computational efficiency of the VAN-DAMME code, we carried out several extensive tests on data layout, computational complexity, memory requirements, and performance. These extensive analyses allowed us to develop computationally efficient approaches for evaluating complex-valued matrix exponential propagators based on Padé approximants. To assess the computational performance of our GPU-accelerated VAN-DAMME code, we carried out QOC calculations of systems containing 10 - 15 qubits, which showed that our GPU implementation is 18.4× faster than the corresponding CPU implementation. Our GPU-accelerated enhancements allow efficient calculations of multi-qubit systems, which can be used for the efficient implementation of QOC applications across multiple domains.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

DOE OSTI2024

Uniformly decaying subspaces for error-mitigated quantum computation

Here, we present a general condition to obtain subspaces that decay uniformly in a system governed by the Lindblad master equation and use them to perform error-mitigated quantum computation. The expectation values of dynamics encoded in such subspaces are unbiased estimators of noise-free expectation values. In analogy to the decoherence free subspaces which are left invariant by the action of Lindblad operators, we show that the uniformly decaying subspaces are left invariant (up to orthogonal terms) by the action of the dissipative part of the Lindblad equation. We apply our theory to a system of qubits and qudits undergoing relaxation with varying decay rates and show that such subspaces can be used to eliminate bias up to first-order variations in the decay rates without requiring full knowledge of noise. Since such a bias cannot be corrected through standard symmetry verification, our method can improve error mitigation in dual-rail qubits and, given partial knowledge of noise, can perform better than probabilistic error cancellation.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗

DOE OSTI2025

Variational Simulation of the Lipkin-Meshkov-Glick Model on a Neutral Atom Quantum Computer

We simulate the Lipkin-Meshkov-Glick model using the variational-quantum-eigensolver algorithm on a neutral atom quantum computer. We test the ground-state energy of spin systems with up to 15 spins. Two different encoding schemes are used: an individual spin encoding where each spin is represented by one qubit, and an efficient Gray code encoding scheme that only requires a number of qubits that scales with the logarithm of the number of spins. This more efficient encoding, together with zero-noise extrapolation techniques, is shown to improve the fidelity of the simulated energies with respect to exact solutions.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

DOE OSTI2024

Wafer-Scale MgB 2 Superconducting Devices

Progress in superconducting device and detector technologies over the past decade has realized practical applications in quantum computers, detectors for far-infrared telescopes, and optical communications. Superconducting thin-film materials, however, have remained largely unchanged, with aluminum still being the material of choice for superconducting qubits and niobium compounds for high-frequency/high kinetic inductance devices. Magnesium diboride (MgB 2 ), known for its highest transition temperature (T c = 39 K) among metallic superconductors, is a viable material for elevated temperature and higher frequency superconducting devices moving toward THz frequencies. However, difficulty in synthesizing wafer-scale thin films has prevented implementation of MgB 2 devices into the application base of superconducting electronics. Here, we report ultrasmooth (<0.5 nm root-mean-square roughness) and uniform MgB 2 thin (<100 nm) films over 100 mm in diameter and present prototype devices fabricated with these films demonstrating key superconducting properties including an internal quality factor over 10 4 at 4.5 K and high tunable kinetic inductance in the order of tens of pH/sq in a 40 nm thick film. This advancement will enable development of elevated temperature, high-frequency superconducting quantum circuits, and devices.

Boron↗

DOE OSTI2026

Using Quantum Sensors to Probe the Quasiparticle Excess in Quantum Circuits due to Ionizing Radiation

This project quantified natural ionizing radiation as a source of excess quasiparticles in superconducting quantum circuits. Thermal Kinetic Inductance Detectors (TKIDs) were developed and deployed to measure event‑by‑event energy deposition in silicon substrates at millikelvin temperatures. Measurements and radiation transport simulations showed strong agreement across keV–MeV energies, providing validated background models and design guidance to mitigate radiation‑induced decoherence in superconducting qubits and detectors.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

DOE OSTI2024

Evidence of scaling advantage for the quantum approximate optimization algorithm on a classically intractable problem

The quantum approximate optimization algorithm (QAOA) is a leading candidate algorithm for solving optimization problems on quantum computers. However, the potential of QAOA to tackle classically intractable problems remains unclear. Here, we perform an extensive numerical investigation of QAOA on the low autocorrelation binary sequences (LABS) problem, which is classically intractable even for moderately sized instances. We perform noiseless simulations with up to 40 qubits and observe that the runtime of QAOA with fixed parameters scales better than branch-and-bound solvers, which are the state-of-the-art exact solvers for LABS. The combination of QAOA with quantum minimum finding gives the best empirical scaling of any algorithm for the LABS problem. We demonstrate experimental progress in executing QAOA for the LABS problem using an algorithm-specific error detection scheme on Quantinuum trapped-ion processors. Our results provide evidence for the utility of QAOA as an algorithmic component that enables quantum speedups.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

DOE OSTI2025

Practical Introduction to Benchmarking and Characterization of Quantum Computers

Rapid progress in quantum technology has transformed quantum computing and quantum information science from theoretical possibilities into tangible engineering challenges. Breakthroughs in quantum algorithms, quantum simulations, and quantum error correction are bringing useful quantum computation closer to fruition. These remarkable achievements have been facilitated by advances in quantum characterization, verification, and validation (QCVV). QCVV methods and protocols enable scientists and engineers to scrutinize, understand, and enhance the performance of quantum information-processing devices. In this tutorial, we review the fundamental principles underpinning QCVV, and introduce a diverse array of QCVV tools used by quantum researchers. We define and explain QCVV’s core models and concepts—quantum states, measurements, and processes—and illustrate how these building blocks are leveraged to examine a target system or operation. We survey and introduce protocols ranging from simple qubit characterization to advanced benchmarking methods. Along the way, we provide illustrated examples and detailed descriptions of the protocols, highlight the advantages and disadvantages of each, and discuss their potential scalability to future large-scale quantum computers. This tutorial serves as a guidebook for researchers unfamiliar with the benchmarking and characterization of quantum computers, and also as a detailed reference for experienced practitioners.

open quantum systems & decoherence↗

DOE OSTI2024

Transition-Metal-Related Quantum Emitters in Wurtzite AlN and GaN

Transition-metal centers exhibit a paramagnetic ground state in wide-bandgap semiconductors and are promising for nanophotonics and quantum information processing. Specifically, there is a growing interest in discovering prominent paramagnetic spin defects that can be manipulated using optical methods. Here, we investigate the electronic structure and magneto-optical properties of Cr and Mn substitutional centers in wurtzite AlN and GaN. We use state-of-the-art hybrid density functional theory calculations to determine level structure, stability, optical signatures, and magnetic properties of these centers. The excitation energies are calculated using the constrained occupation approach and rigorously verified with the complete active space configuration interaction approach. Our simulations of the photoluminescence spectra indicate that $Cr$$^{1+}_{Al}$ in AlN and $Cr$$^{1+}_{Ga}$ in GaN are responsible for the observed narrow quantum emission near 1.2 eV. We compute the zero-field splitting (ZFS) parameters and outline an optical spin polarization protocol for $Cr$$^{1+}_{Al}$ and $Cr$$^{1+}_{Ga}$. Our results demonstrate that these centers are promising candidates for spin qubits.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗

DOE OSTI2026

Quantum science with arrays of metastable helium-3 atoms

The motion of atoms in programmable optical tweezer arrays offers many new opportunities for neutral atom quantum science. These include inter- and intra-site atom motion for resource-efficient implementations of fermionic and bosonic modes, respectively, as well as tweezer transport for efficient compilation of arbitrary circuits. However, the exploitation of atomic motion for all three purposes and others is limited by the inertia of the atoms. We present a comprehensive architectural blueprint for the use of fermionic metastable helium-3 (He) atoms -- the lightest trappable atomic species -- in programmable optical tweezer arrays. This includes a concrete analysis of atomic structure considerations as well as Rydberg-mediated interactions. We show that inter-tweezer hopping of He atoms can be faster than previous demonstrations with lithium-6. We also demonstrate a new toolbox for encoding and manipulating qubits directly in the tweezer trap potential, uniquely enabled by the light mass of He. Finally, we provide several examples of new opportunities for fermionic quantum simulation and computation that leverage the transport and inter-tweezer hopping of He atom arrays. These tools present new methods to improve the resource efficiency of neutral atom quantum science that may also enable quantum simulations of lattice gauge theories and quantum chemistry outside the Born-Oppenheimer approximation

Li, Zheyuan↗