Accelerating Surface Radiation Content to Investigate the Impact of Radon Progeny on Superconducting Qubits

Fuente: arXiv
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Hauptverfasser: Poudel, Sagar S., Temples, Dylan J., Linehan, Ryan, Rodriguez, Alejandro, Hall, Matthew, Kay, Dax, Rodenburg, Nathaniel, Baxter, Daniel, Figueroa-Feliciano, Enectali, Schnee, Richard W., Hsu, Lauren
Format: Preprint
Veröffentlicht: 2026
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author Poudel, Sagar S.
Temples, Dylan J.
Linehan, Ryan
Rodriguez, Alejandro
Hall, Matthew
Kay, Dax
Rodenburg, Nathaniel
Baxter, Daniel
Figueroa-Feliciano, Enectali
Schnee, Richard W.
Hsu, Lauren
author_facet Poudel, Sagar S.
Temples, Dylan J.
Linehan, Ryan
Rodriguez, Alejandro
Hall, Matthew
Kay, Dax
Rodenburg, Nathaniel
Baxter, Daniel
Figueroa-Feliciano, Enectali
Schnee, Richard W.
Hsu, Lauren
contents Ionizing radiation in the form of $α$, $β$, $γ$, and additional high-energy particles can induce decoherence via phonon and quasiparticle poisoning in superconducting qubits. Recent studies have explored this effect using cosmic rays or controlled radioactive sources held in the proximity of a qubit package, and have concluded that reductions in such ``external'' environmental radiation may benefit stable operation of qubit devices. However, the effect of long-lived, unstable daughters of $^{222}$Rn that ``plate out'' directly on device and packaging surfaces has not been as extensively explored. This plate-out process, well-known to the dark matter direct detection field, occurs throughout the fabrication and testing lifecycle of a device and (separately) its packaging, and produces a local source of $α$-decays which can remain active for decades. As this scales with chip area, understanding and managing this source of ionizing radiation is relevant for successfully scaling quantum computing architectures to larger numbers of qubits in a radiation-robust way. We present a setup capable of accelerating and enhancing radon daughter plateout by a factor of $7\times10^4$ over ambient, in order to study, \textit{in situ}, the impact of these events on superconducting qubits. We also provide outlook on the potential impact of this source of ionizing radiation on current and future qubit arrays.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2606_00473
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Accelerating Surface Radiation Content to Investigate the Impact of Radon Progeny on Superconducting Qubits
Poudel, Sagar S.
Temples, Dylan J.
Linehan, Ryan
Rodriguez, Alejandro
Hall, Matthew
Kay, Dax
Rodenburg, Nathaniel
Baxter, Daniel
Figueroa-Feliciano, Enectali
Schnee, Richard W.
Hsu, Lauren
Quantum Physics
Instrumentation and Detectors
Ionizing radiation in the form of $α$, $β$, $γ$, and additional high-energy particles can induce decoherence via phonon and quasiparticle poisoning in superconducting qubits. Recent studies have explored this effect using cosmic rays or controlled radioactive sources held in the proximity of a qubit package, and have concluded that reductions in such ``external'' environmental radiation may benefit stable operation of qubit devices. However, the effect of long-lived, unstable daughters of $^{222}$Rn that ``plate out'' directly on device and packaging surfaces has not been as extensively explored. This plate-out process, well-known to the dark matter direct detection field, occurs throughout the fabrication and testing lifecycle of a device and (separately) its packaging, and produces a local source of $α$-decays which can remain active for decades. As this scales with chip area, understanding and managing this source of ionizing radiation is relevant for successfully scaling quantum computing architectures to larger numbers of qubits in a radiation-robust way. We present a setup capable of accelerating and enhancing radon daughter plateout by a factor of $7\times10^4$ over ambient, in order to study, \textit{in situ}, the impact of these events on superconducting qubits. We also provide outlook on the potential impact of this source of ionizing radiation on current and future qubit arrays.
title Accelerating Surface Radiation Content to Investigate the Impact of Radon Progeny on Superconducting Qubits
topic Quantum Physics
Instrumentation and Detectors
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2606.00473