Comparison of Nb and Ta Pentoxide Loss Tangents for Superconducting Quantum Devices

Quantum Physics arXiv:2512.05407 (quant-ph) [Submitted on 5 Dec 2025] Title:Comparison of Nb and Ta Pentoxide Loss Tangents for Superconducting Quantum Devices Authors:D.P. Goronzy, W.W. Mah, P.G. Lim, T. Guess, S. Majumder, D.A. Garcia-Wetten, M.J. Walker, J. Ramirez, W.-R. Syong, D. Bennett, M. Vissers, R. dos Reis, T. Pham, V.P. Dravid, M.C. Hersam, M.J. Bedzyk, C.R.H. McRae View a PDF of the paper titled Comparison of Nb and Ta Pentoxide Loss Tangents for Superconducting Quantum Devices, by D.P. Goronzy and 16 other authors View PDF HTML (experimental) Abstract:Superconducting transmon qubits are commonly made with thin-film Nb wiring, but recent studies have shown increased performance with Ta wiring. In this work, we compare the resonator-induced single photon, millikelvin dielectric loss for pentoxides of Nb (Nb2O5) and Ta (Ta2O5) in order to further understand limiting losses in qubits. Nb and Ta pentoxides of three thicknesses are deposited via pulsed laser deposition onto identical coplanar waveguide resonators. The two-level system (TLS) loss in Nb2O5 is determined to be about 30% higher than that of Ta2O5. This work indicates that qubits with Nb wiring are affected by higher loss arising from the native pentoxide itself, likely in addition to the presence of suboxides, which are largely absent in Ta. Subjects: Quantum Physics (quant-ph) Cite as: arXiv:2512.05407 [quant-ph] (or arXiv:2512.05407v1 [quant-ph] for this version) https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2512.05407 Focus to learn more arXiv-issued DOI via DataCite (pending registration) Submission history From: Corey Rae McRae [view email] [v1] Fri, 5 Dec 2025 03:56:58 UTC (4,381 KB) Full-text links: Access Paper: View a PDF of the paper titled Comparison of Nb and Ta Pentoxide Loss Tangents for Superconducting Quantum Devices, by D.P. Goronzy and 16 other authorsView PDFHTML (experimental)TeX Source view license Current browse context: quant-ph new | recent | 2025-12 References & Citations INSPIRE HEP NASA ADSGoogle Scholar Semantic Scholar export BibTeX citation Loading... BibTeX formatted citation × loading... Data provided by: Bookmark Bibliographic Tools Bibliographic and Citation Tools Bibliographic Explorer Toggle Bibliographic Explorer (What is the Explorer?) Connected Papers Toggle Connected Papers (What is Connected Papers?) Litmaps Toggle Litmaps (What is Litmaps?) scite.ai Toggle scite Smart Citations (What are Smart Citations?) Code, Data, Media Code, Data and Media Associated with this Article alphaXiv Toggle alphaXiv (What is alphaXiv?) Links to Code Toggle CatalyzeX Code Finder for Papers (What is CatalyzeX?) DagsHub Toggle DagsHub (What is DagsHub?) GotitPub Toggle Gotit.pub (What is GotitPub?) Huggingface Toggle Hugging Face (What is Huggingface?) Links to Code Toggle Papers with Code (What is Papers with Code?) ScienceCast Toggle ScienceCast (What is ScienceCast?) Demos Demos Replicate Toggle Replicate (What is Replicate?) Spaces Toggle Hugging Face Spaces (What is Spaces?) Spaces Toggle TXYZ.AI (What is TXYZ.AI?) Related Papers Recommenders and Search Tools Link to Influence Flower Influence Flower (What are Influence Flowers?) Core recommender toggle CORE Recommender (What is CORE?) Author Venue Institution Topic About arXivLabs arXivLabs: experimental projects with community collaborators arXivLabs is a framework that allows collaborators to develop and share new arXiv features directly on our website. Both individuals and organizations that work with arXivLabs have embraced and accepted our values of openness, community, excellence, and user data privacy. arXiv is committed to these values and only works with partners that adhere to them. Have an idea for a project that will add value for arXiv's community? Learn more about arXivLabs. Which authors of this paper are endorsers? | Disable MathJax (What is MathJax?)