Rhenium as a material platform for long-lived transmon qubits

• URL: http://arxiv.org/abs/2603.11188v1
• Date: Wed, 11 Mar 2026 18:01:04 GMT
• Title: Rhenium as a material platform for long-lived transmon qubits
• Abstract summary: Dielectric loss at the interfaces of superconducting films has long been recognized as limiting the performance of state-of-the-art superconducting circuits.<n>Here, we explore r as a candidate for the film, motivated by its remarkable property to suppress native oxide formation.<n>We demonstrate r on sapphire as a promising material platform for superconducting circuits through the realization of transmons with mean relaxation times up to 407 microseconds at 5 GHz.
• Score: 5.870908487290112
• License: http://arxiv.org/licenses/nonexclusive-distrib/1.0/
• Abstract: Dielectric loss at the interfaces of superconducting films has long been recognized as limiting the performance of state-of-the-art superconducting circuits. Notably, the presence of a native oxide layer on the film is hypothesized to contribute to dielectric loss at the metal-air interface. Here, we explore rhenium as a candidate for the film, motivated by its remarkable property to suppress native oxide formation. We demonstrate rhenium on sapphire as a promising material platform for superconducting circuits through the realization of transmons with mean relaxation times $T_1$ up to 407 microseconds at 5 GHz. Our transmons are supplemented with a loss characterization study, in which we separate the dominant loss mechanisms and construct a loss budget that agrees with our $T_1$ measurements. Further characterization may establish rhenium as a leading candidate for maximizing decoherence time.

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