Hardware-Efficient Qubit Control with Single-Flux-Quantum Pulse Sequences

The hardware overhead associated with microwave control is a major obstacle to the scale-up of superconducting quantum computing. An alternative approach involves irradiation of the qubits with trains of single-flux-quantum (SFQ) pulses, pulses of voltage whose time integral is precisely equal to the superconducting flux quantum. Here, we describe the derivation and numerical validation of compact SFQ pulse sequences in which classical bits are clocked to the qubit at a frequency that is roughly a factor 5 higher than the qubit oscillation frequency, allowing for variable pulse-to-pulse timing The control sequences are constructed by repeated streaming of short subsequence registers that are designed to suppress leakage out of the computational manifold. With a single global clock, high-fidelity (>99.99%) control of qubits resonating at over 20 distinct frequencies is possible. SFQ pulses can be stored locally and delivered to the qubits via a proximal classical Josephson digital circuit, offering the possibility of a streamlined, low-footprint classical coprocessor for monitoring errors and feeding back to the qubit array.