Investigation of coherence of niobium-based resonators enabled by a fast-sealing microwave cavity
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Quantum Physics arXiv:2604.08813 (quant-ph) [Submitted on 9 Apr 2026] Title:Investigation of coherence of niobium-based resonators enabled by a fast-sealing microwave cavity Authors:Chi Zhang, Richard Germond, Noah Janzen, Anne-Marie Valente-Feliciano, Mustafa Bal, Adrian Lupascu View a PDF of the paper titled Investigation of coherence of niobium-based resonators enabled by a fast-sealing microwave cavity, by Chi Zhang and 5 other authors View PDF HTML (experimental) Abstract:Resonators and qubits with a niobium (Nb) base metal layer achieve some of the highest coherence times in superconducting quantum devices. The performance of such devices is often limited by loss associated with two-level systems, which are found primarily at material surfaces and interfaces. The metal-air (MA) interface is a major contributor to device loss. In this work, we develop a fast-sealing microwave cavity that enables devices to be placed under vacuum within five minutes of oxide removal, thereby significantly reducing the MA interface loss compared to common device processing and packaging approaches. Using coplanar stripline resonators, we demonstrate that devices sealed in such a cavity exhibit internal quality factors exceeding one million at single-photon power. After re-exposure to air, the devices show downward resonance frequency shifts and quality factor degradations, quantitatively consistent with a model of Nb oxide regrowth. The fast-sealing microwave cavity provides a practical and consistent method to mitigate MA interface loss and sustain high coherence in Nb devices, and establishes a controlled platform for studying metal oxide regrowth kinetics and dielectric properties, the understanding of which is critical to achieving high coherence in superconducting quantum devices. Comments: Subjects: Quantum Physics (quant-ph) Cite as: arXiv:2604.08813 [quant-ph] (or arXiv:2604.08813v1 [quant-ph] for this version) https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2604.08813 Focus to learn more arXiv-issued DOI via DataCite (pending registration) Submission history From: Chi Zhang [view email] [v1] Thu, 9 Apr 2026 23:07:47 UTC (10,853 KB) Full-text links: Access Paper: View a PDF of the paper titled Investigation of coherence of niobium-based resonators enabled by a fast-sealing microwave cavity, by Chi Zhang and 5 other authorsView PDFHTML (experimental)TeX Source view license Current browse context: quant-ph new | recent | 2026-04 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?)