High Coherence, Small Footprint Superconducting Qubit made by Stacking up Atomically Thin Crystals

A superconducting qubit is manufactured by stacking up atomically-thin, crystalline monolayers to form a heterostructure held together by van der Waals forces. Two sheets of superconducting material are separated by a third, thin sheet of dielectric to provide both a parallel plate shunting capacitor and a Josephson tunneling barrier. The superconducting material may be a transition metal dichalcogenide (TMD), such as niobium disilicate, and the dielectric may be hexagonal boron nitride. The qubit is etched, or material otherwise removed, to form a magnetic flux loop for tuning. The heterostructure may be protected by adhering additional layers of the dielectric or other insulator on its top and bottom. For readout, the qubit may be coupled to an external resonator, or the resonator may be integral with one of the sheets of superconducting material.