Gradiometric, fully tunable C-shunted flux qubits

Fully tunable flux qubits offer in-situ and independent controls of their energy potential asymmetry and tunnel barrier, making them versatile tools for quantum computation and the study of decoherence sources. However, only short coherence times have been demonstrated so far with this type of qubit. Here, we present a capacitively shunted flux qubit featuring improved relaxation times up to T₁ = 25 μ s and a 20-GHz wide theoretical frequency tunability range at the flux-insensitive sweet spot, of which a 3-GHz range was shown. As a model application, we demonstrate detection of two-level tunneling defects in a frequency range spanning one octave.