An All-van-der-Waals Qubit

Abstract

Advances in solid-state physics, materials science, and device engineering have accelerated the development of superconducting qubits. Among emerging platforms, van der Waals (vdW) materials and their heterostructures are potentially attractive building blocks for quantum devices, yet their realization in qubit architectures remains largely underexplored. Here we report an all-vdW superconducting qubit based on a NbSe$_2$-hBN-NbSe$_2$ junction, in which a thin hBN layer simultaneously provides Josephson coupling and capacitive shunting between two NbSe$_2$ islands, forming a "merged-element" transmon. Temporal characterization using circuit quantum electrodynamics (cQED) techniques yields an average energy-relaxation time $T_{1,\mathrm{avg}} = 55 ~μs$, Hahn-echo coherence time $T_{2\mathrm{E},\mathrm{avg}} = 21 ~μs$, and Ramsey coherence time $T_{2\mathrm{R},\mathrm{avg}} = 1.9~μs$. The relatively low Ramsey time is primarily attributable to an enhanced sensitivity to charge noise consistent with the realized device parameters and not a fundamental limitation. These results show that lumped-element superconducting qubits based on vdW heterostructures can achieve coherence times comparable to those of conventional Al-AlO$_\mathrm{x}$-Al qubits, while offering a reduced device footprint and suppressed stray capacitive coupling.