A protected superconducting qubit

The platform of superconducting qubits has emerged as one of the leading candidates for the realization of fault-tolerant quantum computers. Over the last 20 years, the coherence times of these types of qubits have improved by a remarkable six orders of magnitude, which can be mostly attributed to the carefully engineered environments of the devices and the optimization of energy scales of the constituents. At the same time, however, the basic elements, the connectivity of the circuits and the materials used to realize the components have been only slightly modified since the first implementations. Our experimental group lies at the intersection of quantum materials science and quantum information science to realize and develop novel hybrid superconducting and semiconducting circuits, which offer intrinsic protection against decoherence.