Resist-free shadow deposition using silicon trenches for Josephson junctions in superconducting qubits
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Quantum Physics arXiv:2604.09796 (quant-ph) [Submitted on 10 Apr 2026] Title:Resist-free shadow deposition using silicon trenches for Josephson junctions in superconducting qubits Authors:Tathagata Banerjee, Stephen Daniel Funni, Saswata Roy, Judy J. Cha, Valla Fatemi View a PDF of the paper titled Resist-free shadow deposition using silicon trenches for Josephson junctions in superconducting qubits, by Tathagata Banerjee and 4 other authors View PDF HTML (experimental) Abstract:Superconducting qubit fabrication innovations continue to be explored to achieve higher performance. Despite improvements to base layer fabrication and processing, resist-based Josephson junction (JJ) schemes have largely remained unchanged. The polymer mask during deposition causes chemical contamination and limits in situ and ex situ surface preparation, junction materials, and scalability. Here, we demonstrate a resist-free approach to junction fabrication based on etched silicon trenches that is CMOS compatible and easily integrated into existing innovations in qubit base layer fabrication and chemical processing. We fabricate Al-AlOx-Al JJs and qubits using this method, measuring median energy relaxation times up to 184 microseconds. We find minimal contamination at the substrate-metal interface and fluctuations of energy relaxation on a 35 hour timescale that are narrow and normally distributed. The method widens the process window for substrate preparation and new materials platforms. Comments: Subjects: Quantum Physics (quant-ph); Applied Physics (physics.app-ph) Cite as: arXiv:2604.09796 [quant-ph] (or arXiv:2604.09796v1 [quant-ph] for this version) https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2604.09796 Focus to learn more arXiv-issued DOI via DataCite (pending registration) Submission history From: Tathagata Banerjee [view email] [v1] Fri, 10 Apr 2026 18:19:18 UTC (11,747 KB) Full-text links: Access Paper: View a PDF of the paper titled Resist-free shadow deposition using silicon trenches for Josephson junctions in superconducting qubits, by Tathagata Banerjee and 4 other authorsView PDFHTML (experimental)TeX Source view license Current browse context: quant-ph new | recent | 2026-04 Change to browse by: physics physics.app-ph 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?)