Interface Piezoelectric Loss in Superconducting Qubits
Summarize this article with:
Quantum Physics arXiv:2605.15554 (quant-ph) [Submitted on 15 May 2026] Title:Interface Piezoelectric Loss in Superconducting Qubits Authors:Haoxin Zhou, Kangdi Yu, Yashwanth Balaji, Sanjit Shirol, Leo Sementilli, Zi-Huai Zhang, Adam Schwartzberg, Alp Sipahigil View a PDF of the paper titled Interface Piezoelectric Loss in Superconducting Qubits, by Haoxin Zhou and 7 other authors View PDF HTML (experimental) Abstract:Dissipation remains a central obstacle to improving superconducting quantum circuits, yet the microscopic origins of loss in widely used materials platforms are not fully understood. Here, we report the observation of interface piezoelectricity-induced dissipation in superconducting qubits fabricated on high-resistivity silicon. Our devices use a transmon qubit with a shunt capacitor that simultaneously serves as an interdigital transducer embedded in a surface acoustic wave resonator. By tuning the qubit transition into resonance with discrete mechanical modes, we observe up to a factor-of-two reduction in qubit lifetime, consistent with energy exchange between the qubit and mechanical modes mediated by piezoelectric coupling at the aluminum-silicon interface. Our findings provide direct evidence for interface piezoelectricity as a distinct loss channel in superconducting qubits. Combined with multiphysics simulations, these findings suggest that interface piezoelectric loss can dominate over loss from two-level systems at sufficiently high frequencies. Subjects: Quantum Physics (quant-ph); Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics (cond-mat.mes-hall) Cite as: arXiv:2605.15554 [quant-ph] (or arXiv:2605.15554v1 [quant-ph] for this version) https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2605.15554 Focus to learn more arXiv-issued DOI via DataCite (pending registration) Submission history From: Kangdi Yu [view email] [v1] Fri, 15 May 2026 02:46:29 UTC (9,571 KB) Full-text links: Access Paper: View a PDF of the paper titled Interface Piezoelectric Loss in Superconducting Qubits, by Haoxin Zhou and 7 other authorsView PDFHTML (experimental)TeX Source view license Current browse context: quant-ph new | recent | 2026-05 Change to browse by: cond-mat cond-mat.mes-hall 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?) 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?)