Charge qubit

Circuit diagram of a Cooper pair box circuit. The island (dotted line) is formed by the superconducting electrode between the gate capacitor and the junction capacitance.

In quantum computing, a charge qubit is a qubit whose basis states are charge states (i.e. states which represent the presence or absence of excess Cooper pairs in the island). A charge qubit is formed by a tiny superconducting island (also known as a Cooper-pair box) coupled by a Josephson junction to a superconducting reservoir (see figure). The state of the qubit is determined by the number of Cooper pairs which have tunneled across the junction. In contrast with the charge state of an atomic or molecular ion, the charge states of such an "island" involve a macroscopic number of conduction electrons of the island. The quantum superposition of charge states can be achieved by tuning the gate voltage U that controls the chemical potential of the island. The charge qubit is typically read-out by electrostatically coupling the island to an extremely sensitive electrometer such as the radio-frequency single-electron transistor.

Typical T₂ coherence times for a charge qubit are on the order of 1–2 μs. Recent work has shown T₂ times approaching 100 μs using a type of charge qubit known as a transmon inside a three-dimensional superconducting cavity. Understanding the limits of T₂ is an active area of research in the field of superconducting quantum computing.