Survey of Radiation Effects in Superconducting Qubits and Sensors

There is vibrant research community studying the effects of ionizing radiation in superconducting circuits, especially quantum bits (qubits) and various sensors. Qubits are extremely sensitive to disturbances from their environment. Naturally occurring radiation is a particular nuisance causing upsets that confound error-correction schemes. However, because of the same underlying physics, superconducting sensors can be exquisitely sensitive probes. This talk will explore the underlying physics that connects radiation to broken Cooper pairs, or quasiparticles. We’ll see how these can collapse the delicate state of a qubit, or serve as the fundamental information carriers in a sensor, depending on the context. We will then see the state of the art in protecting qubits from radiation effects and how superconducting sensors are being used to study and mitigate the related issues.