Single qubit operations using microwave hyperbolic secant pulses
H. S. Ku, J. L. Long, Xian Wu, Mustafa Bal, Russell E. Lake, Edwin Barnes, Sophia E. Economou, David P. Pappas · Physical Review A · 2017
It has been known since the early days of quantum mechanics that hyperbolic secant pulses possess the unique property that they can perform full-cycle Rabi oscillations on two-level quantum systems independently of the pulse detuning. More recently, it was realized that they induce detuning-controlled phases without changing state populations. Here, we experimentally demonstrate the properties of hyperbolic secant pulses on superconducting transmon qubits and contrast them with the more commonly used Gaussian and square waves. We further show that these properties can be exploited to implement phase gates, nominally without exiting the computational subspace. This enables us to demonstrate a microwave-driven $Z$ rotation with a single control parameter, the detuning.