Strain Tuning of Individual Atomic Tunneling Systems Detected by a Superconducting Qubit

Abstract

Bend to Straighten At low temperatures, the behavior of disordered solids, such as glasses, deviates from that of ordered crystals. The deviations may stem from the ability of some atomic entities to tunnel between two sites of almost identical energy, forming two low-energy states; such two-level systems (TLSs) are also thought to be a major contributor to the decoherence of superconducting qubits. Grabovskij et al. (p. 232 ) used mechanical strain to control the splitting between the energy levels of TLSs formed in the disordered barrier of the Josephson junction in a superconducting qubit. For some of the detected TLSs, the splitting exhibited the predicted minimum as a function of strain, verifying the TLS model of disordered solids.