Pulsed Reset Protocol for Fixed-Frequency Superconducting Qubits

The unconditional and fast reset of fixed-frequency superconducting qubits is crucial for the operation of near-term quantum computers at elevated trigger rates. Many reset schemes are either conditional (depend on the qubit's state) or require flux tunability. This study presents an all-microwave pulsed reset sequence that uses the readout resonator to unconditionally empty a fixed-frequency transmon qubit, and that also reduces the qubit thermal population. This method could be used to increase the repetition rate of a superconducting quantum computer running, for example, variational eigensolvers requiring many measurements.