Superconducting qubits are among the leading platforms for realizing fault-tolerant quantum computation. However, atomic-scale material defects, known as two-level systems (TLS), naturally occur at the surfaces and interfaces of all materials that constitute superconducting qubits. These TLS defects limit the performance of superconducting qubits, affecting both the coherence of individual physical qubits, and the optimization landscape of large-scale quantum processors. In this talk, I will present a new approach that directly modifies the properties of TLS through nanoscale engineering. This transforms TLS into a potentially useful quantum resource, opening new opportunities in the superconducting qubit platform.

Mo Chen is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Materials Science & Engineering at the University of Washington. Prior to this, he was a postdoctoral scholar in the Painter lab at CalTech, where he pioneered the nanoscale engineering of material defects in superconducting quantum circuits. Chen received his B.S. from Fudan University, and both S.M. and Ph.D. degrees from MIT.