High-quality superconducting tantalum resonators with beta phase defects

Abstract

For practical superconducting quantum processors, orders of magnitude improvement in coherence is required, motivating efforts to optimize hardware design and explore new materials. Among the latter, the coherence of superconducting transmon qubits has been shown to improve by forming the qubit capacitor pads from α-tantalum, avoiding the metastable β-phase that forms when depositing tantalum at room temperature, and has been previously identified to be a source of microwave losses. In this work, we show lumped element resonators containing β-phase tantalum in the form of inclusions near the metal–substrate interface with internal quality factors (Qi) up to 5.0 ± 2.5×106 in the single photon regime. They perform at least as good as resonators with no sign of the β-phase in x-ray diffraction and thermal quasi-particle loss. Our results indicate that small concentrations of β-phase can be beneficial, enhancing critical magnetic fields and potentially, for improving coherence in tantalum-based superconducting circuits.