Solid-state qubits have recently advanced to the level that enables them, in principle, to be scaledup into fault-tolerant quantum computers. As these physical qubits continue to advance, meeting the challenge of realising a quantum machine will also require the engineering of new classical hardware and control architectures with complexity far beyond the systems used in today's fewqubit experiments. Here, we report a micro-architecture for controlling and reading out qubits during the execution of a quantum algorithm such as an error correcting code. We demonstrate the basic principles of this architecture in a configuration that distributes components of the control system across different temperature stages of a dilution refrigerator, as determined by the available cooling power. The combined setup includes a cryogenic field-programmable gate array (FPGA) controlling a switching matrix at 20 millikelvin which, in turn, manipulates a semiconductor qubit.Realising the classical control system of a quantum computer is a formidable scientific and engineering challenge in its own right 1,2 . The hardware that comprises the control interface must be fast relative to the timescales of qubit decoherence, low-noise so as not to further disturb the fragile operation of qubits, and scalable with respect to physical resources, ensuring that the footprint for routing signal lines or the operating power does not grow rapidly as the number of qubits increases 3,4 . As solid-state quantum processors will likely operate below 1 kelvin 5-8 , components of the control system will also need to function in a cryogenic environment, adding further constraints.Similar challenges have long been addressed in the satellite and space exploration community 9 , where the need for high-frequency electronic systems operating reliably in extreme environments has driven the development of new circuits and devices 10 . Quantum computing systems, on the other hand, have to date largely relied on brute-force approaches, controlling a few qubits directly via room temperature electronics that is hardwired to the quantum device at cryogenic temperatures.Here we present a control architecture for operating a cryogenic quantum processor autonomously and demonstrate its basic building blocks using a semiconductor qubit. This architecture addresses many aspects related to scalability of the control interface by embedding multiplexing sub-systems at cryogenic temperatures and separating the high-bandwidth analog control waveforms from the digital addressing needed to select qubits for manipulation. Our demonstration comprises a commercial field-programmable gate array (FPGA) operating at 4 kelvin and controlling a microwave signal switching matrix at 20 mK, which then interfaces with a quantum dot device. Bringing these sub-systems together in the context of our control architecture suggests a path for scaleup of control hardware needed to manipulate the large numbers of qubits in a useful quantum machine. I. CONTROL MICRO-ARCHITECTUREOur control micro-...

Circulators are nonreciprocal circuit elements that are integral to technologies including radar systems, microwave communication transceivers, and the readout of quantum information devices. Their nonreciprocity arises from the interference of microwaves over the centimeter scale of the signal wavelength, in the presence of bulky magnetic media that breaks time-reversal symmetry. Here, we realize a completely passive on-chip microwave circulator with size 1=1000th the wavelength by exploiting the chiral, "slow-light" response of a two-dimensional electron gas in the quantum Hall regime. For an integrated GaAs device with 330 μm diameter and about 1-GHz center frequency, a nonreciprocity of 25 dB is observed over a 50-MHz bandwidth. Furthermore, the nonreciprocity can be dynamically tuned by varying the voltage at the port, an aspect that may enable reconfigurable passive routing of microwave signals on chip.

Gate-tunable junctions are key elements in quantum devices based on hybrid semiconductor–superconductor materials. They serve multiple purposes ranging from tunnel spectroscopy probes to voltage-controlled qubit operations in gatemon and topological qubits. Common to all is that junction transparency plays a critical role. In this study, we grow single-crystalline InAs, InSb, and InAs1–x Sb x semiconductor nanowires with epitaxial Al, Sn, and Pb superconductors and in situ shadowed junctions in a single-step molecular beam epitaxy process. We investigate correlations between fabrication parameters, junction morphologies, and electronic transport properties of the junctions and show that the examined in situ shadowed junctions are of significantly higher quality than the etched junctions. By varying the edge sharpness of the shadow junctions, we show that the sharpest edges yield the highest junction transparency for all three examined semiconductors. Further, critical supercurrent measurements reveal an extraordinarily high I C R N, close to the KO-2 limit. This study demonstrates a promising engineering path toward reliable gate-tunable superconducting qubits.

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Incorporating ferromagnetic dopants into three-dimensional topological insulator thin films has recently led to the realisation of the quantum anomalous Hall effect. These materials are of great interest since they may support electrical currents that flow without resistance, even at zero magnetic field. To date, the quantum anomalous Hall effect has been investigated using low-frequency transport measurements. However, transport results can be difficult to interpret due to the presence of parallel conductive paths, or because additional non-chiral edge channels may exist. Here we move beyond transport measurements by probing the microwave response of a magnetised disk of Cr-(Bi,Sb)2Te3. We identify features associated with chiral edge plasmons, a signature that robust edge channels are intrinsic to this material system. Our results provide a measure of the velocity of edge excitations without contacting the sample, and pave the way for an on-chip circuit element of practical importance: the zero-field microwave circulator.

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Radio-frequency (RF) reflectometry is implemented in hybrid semiconductor-superconductor nanowire systems designed to probe Majorana zero modes. Two approaches are presented. In the first, hybrid nanowire-based devices are part of a resonant circuit, allowing conductance to be measured as a function of several gate voltages ∼40 times faster than using conventional lowfrequency lock-in methods. In the second, nanowire devices are capacitively coupled to a nearby RF single-electron transistor made from a separate nanowire, allowing RF detection of charge, including charge-only measurement of the crossover from 2e inter-island charge transitions at zero magnetic field to 1e transitions at axial magnetic fields above 0.6 T, where a topological state is expected. Single-electron sensing yields signal-to-noise exceeding 3 and visibility 99.8% for a measurement time of 1 µs. arXiv:1902.00789v1 [cond-mat.mes-hall]

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