Impact of Oxygen Vacancies in Josephson Junction on Decoherence of Superconducting Qubits
Summarize this article with:
Quantum Physics arXiv:2603.11469 (quant-ph) [Submitted on 12 Mar 2026] Title:Impact of Oxygen Vacancies in Josephson Junction on Decoherence of Superconducting Qubits Authors:Hanqin Bai, Shi-Yao Hou, Mu Lan View a PDF of the paper titled Impact of Oxygen Vacancies in Josephson Junction on Decoherence of Superconducting Qubits, by Hanqin Bai and 2 other authors View PDF HTML (experimental) Abstract:Superconducting quantum circuits are promising platforms for scalable quantum computing, where qubit coherence is critically determined by microscopic defects in the oxide tunneling barrier of Josephson junctions. Amorphous Al$_2$O$_3$ is widely used as a barrier material, but under irradiation, oxygen vacancy (V$_O$) defects are readily generated, introducing noise sources that accelerate qubit decoherence. We systematically investigate the structural characteristics and electronic impact of V$_O$ defects in amorphous Al$_2$O$_3$ using first-principles calculations and \textit{ab initio} molecular dynamics. Our results show that both the coordination environment and concentration of V$_O$s strongly influence electrical conductivity. In particular, two- and three-coordinated V$_O$s, unique to the amorphous structure, enhance conductivity more than conventional four-coordinated vacancies. Increasing V$_O$ concentration amplifies conductivity fluctuations, which we link to critical current noise in Josephson junctions. Using a noise model, we estimate that higher V$_O$ densities lead to shorter qubit coherence times. These findings provide insights for radiation-hard design of superconducting quantum devices. Comments: Subjects: Quantum Physics (quant-ph); Superconductivity (cond-mat.supr-con) Cite as: arXiv:2603.11469 [quant-ph] (or arXiv:2603.11469v1 [quant-ph] for this version) https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2603.11469 Focus to learn more arXiv-issued DOI via DataCite (pending registration) Submission history From: Shi-Yao Hou [view email] [v1] Thu, 12 Mar 2026 02:47:22 UTC (6,415 KB) Full-text links: Access Paper: View a PDF of the paper titled Impact of Oxygen Vacancies in Josephson Junction on Decoherence of Superconducting Qubits, by Hanqin Bai and 2 other authorsView PDFHTML (experimental)TeX Source view license Current browse context: quant-ph new | recent | 2026-03 Change to browse by: cond-mat cond-mat.supr-con 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?)