DETAILED ACTION
Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Status of Claims
This Office Action is in response to the communication filed on 01 February 2024.
Claims 1-20 are being considered on the merits.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 09 February 2024, 09 February 2024, and 06 February 2026 have been considered. The submission is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, initialed and dated copies of Applicant's IDS forms 1499 are attached to the instant Office action.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
In the event the determination of the status of the application as subject to AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103 (or as subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103) is incorrect, any correction of the statutory basis (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) for the rejection will not be considered a new ground of rejection if the prior art relied upon, and the rationale supporting the rejection, would be the same under either status.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 103 which forms the basis for all obviousness rejections set forth in this Office action:
A patent for a claimed invention may not be obtained, notwithstanding that the claimed invention is not identically disclosed as set forth in section 102, if the differences between the claimed invention and the prior art are such that the claimed invention as a whole would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the claimed invention pertains. Patentability shall not be negated by the manner in which the invention was made.
Claims 1-9, 12, 14, and 17-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Finck, et. al. (US 2023/0401476 A1; hereinafter, “Finck”) in view of Curtis, et. al. (US 2019/0370679 A1; hereinafter, “Curtis”).
Claim 1:
A system, comprising: one or more classical computing devices, configured to provide drive control instructions to one or more quantum hardware devices for performance of an entangling gate; and (Curtis, para. 0025: “In some cases, the control system 110 includes one or more classical computers or classical computing components.”)
the one or more quantum hardware devices comprising: a first set of fluxonium hardware components, configured to implement a first fluxonium qubit; a second set of fluxonium hardware components, configured to: implement a second fluxonium qubit; and (Curtis, para. 0040: “ In some implementations, the quantum information processor includes a superconducting circuit, and the qubits can be implemented as fluxonium devices, transmon devices or another type of device that includes one or more Josephson junctions.” Examiner notes Curtis teaches multiple qubits i.e. at least a first and a second).
be capacitively coupled to the first set of fluxonium hardware components; and (Curtis, para. 0040: “In some cases, the qubit devices are interconnected by electronic components or other connections in the superconducting circuit. In some implementations, the qubits can be implemented as trapped ions in an ion trap system. In some cases, the trapped ions are interconnected by optical media or connections in the ion trap system. Data qubits may be implemented and interconnected using other types of hardware.”)
a resonator coupler, wherein resonator coupler is configured to be capacitively coupled to the first set of fluxonium hardware components and to the second set of fluxonium hardware components, (Finck, para. 0075: “In addition, the second and third curves 802 and 803 illustrate a relatively large amount of longitudinal coupling between the superconducting LC resonator coupler and the first and second fluxonium qubits Q1 and Q2, wherein such longitudinal coupling is sufficient to implement a entanglement gate between the first and second fluxonium qubits Q1 and Q2 through mediation of the superconducting LC resonator coupler, without direct exchange coupling between the first and second fluxonium qubits Q1 and Q2.”)
wherein the one or more quantum hardware devices are further configured to: receive the drive control instructions; and (Curtis, para. 0081: “Some of the subject matter described in this specification can be implemented as one or more computer programs, i.e., one or more modules of computer program instructions, encoded on a computer storage medium for execution by, or to control the operation of, data-processing apparatus”)
perform the entangling gate between the first and second fluxonium qubits based, at least in part, on charge modulation of the resonator coupler. (Finck, para. 0040 and 0075: “In other embodiments, the coupler circuitry 230 comprises a superconducting LC resonator coupler circuit which is configured to have resonant frequency that is detuned from the transition frequencies of the first and second qubits 210 and 220.” “In addition, the second and third curves 802 and 803 illustrate a relatively large amount of longitudinal coupling between the superconducting LC resonator coupler and the first and second fluxonium qubits Q1 and Q2, wherein such longitudinal coupling is sufficient to implement a entanglement gate between the first and second fluxonium qubits Q1 and Q2 through mediation of the superconducting LC resonator coupler, without direct exchange coupling between the first and second fluxonium qubits Q1 and Q2.”)
It would have obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the present application to combine the teachings of Curtis into Finck. Finck teaches superconducting quantum systems and devices that are implemented using superconducting quantum bits (qubits); Curtis teaches a quantum logic control sequence is generated for performing a quantum computation. One of ordinary skill would have been motivated to combine the teachings of Curtis into Finck in order to execute a quantum logic circuit which may be executed in less time, with less error correction, with greater accuracy (Curtis, para. 0015).
Claim 2:
The system of claim 1, wherein the entangling gate between the first and second fluxonium qubits is a Controlled-Z gate. (Finck, para. 0027: “The state of a qubit can be changed by applying a single-qubit gate operation to the qubit, which causes the current state of the qubit to rotate around, e.g., the X-axis, Y-axis, X-Y axis, or Z-axis, etc., depending on the given gate operation. A rotation about the Z-axis results in a change in the angle ϕ.”)
Claim 3:
The system of claim 1, wherein, to perform the entangling gate, the one or more quantum hardware devices are configured to: conditional on the first and second fluxonium qubits being in respective first excited states, drive the resonator coupler from a ground state of the resonator coupler to a first excited state of the resonator coupler; and drive the resonator coupler back from the first excited state of the resonator coupler to the ground state of the resonator coupler. (Finck, para. 0049: “ In some embodiments, to perform an entanglement gate operation, a suitably calibrated control pulse is applied to the transmon qubit coupler 330 through a coupler drive line that is capacitively coupled to, e.g., the first node N1 of the transmon qubit coupler 330 to drive the transmon qubit coupler 330 through a full 2π rotation around the X-axis of the Bloch sphere (e.g., from ground state |0 [Image Omitted] to the first excited state |1 [Image Omitted] , and back to the ground state |0 [Image Omitted] ). This full 2π rotation causes the first and second fluxonium qubits 310 and 320 to be exchanged coupled to the transmon qubit coupler 330 and exchange energy to thereby enable interaction between the first and second fluxonium qubits 310 and 320 and perform an entanglement gate operation.” Examiner notes Finck also teaches at 0050, the LC resonator coupler of fig 4 operates similarly to the quantum circuit described above.)
Claim 4:
The system of claim 3, wherein, to perform the entangling gate, the one or more quantum hardware devices are configured to: conditional on the first and second fluxonium qubits being in respective first excited states, cause, within a duration of the entangling gate, a phase shift of π. (Finck, para. 0027: “The state of a qubit can be changed by applying a single-qubit gate operation to the qubit, which causes the current state of the qubit to rotate around, e.g., the X-axis, Y-axis, X-Y axis, or Z-axis, etc., depending on the given gate operation. A rotation about the Z-axis results in a change in the angle ϕ. In addition, qubits can be controlled using entanglement gate operations to entangle the states of two or more qubits and, thereby, generate a combined state of two or more qubits which contains more information than the individual states of the qubits.” Examiner notes a phase shift of π corresponds to a rotation about the z-axis as taught by Pinck)
Claim 5:
The system of claim 1, wherein, to perform the entangling gate, the one or more quantum hardware devices are configured to: conditional on one or both of the first and second fluxonium qubits being in respective ground states, maintain the resonator coupler in a ground state of the resonator coupler for a duration of the entangling gate. (Finck, para. 0049: “ In some embodiments, to perform an entanglement gate operation, a suitably calibrated control pulse is applied to the transmon qubit coupler 330 through a coupler drive line that is capacitively coupled to, e.g., the first node N1 of the transmon qubit coupler 330 to drive the transmon qubit coupler 330 through a full 2π rotation around the X-axis of the Bloch sphere (e.g., from ground state |0 [Image Omitted] to the first excited state |1 [Image Omitted] , and back to the ground state |0 [Image Omitted] ). This full 2π rotation causes the first and second fluxonium qubits 310 and 320 to be exchanged coupled to the transmon qubit coupler 330 and exchange energy to thereby enable interaction between the first and second fluxonium qubits 310 and 320 and perform an entanglement gate operation.” Examiner notes the phrase “a duration of the entangling gate” is interpreted broadly a resonator coupler being in a ground state during any duration of an entangling gate, including initially and at the end of the operation where a it begins and ends in a grounds state)
Claim 6:
The system of claim 1, wherein the resonator coupler is fabricated using Tantalum. (Finck, para. 0052: “The circuit elements can be formed using various types of superconductor materials that are suitable for a given application, including, but not limited to, elementary metals such as niobium (Nb), aluminum (Al), tantalum (Ta), and compound such as titanium nitride (TiN), niobium nitride (NbN), niobium titanium nitride (NbTiN), etc”)
Claim 7:
The system of claim 1, wherein the resonator coupler is a harmonic oscillator. (Finck, para. 0050: “As compared to me transmon qubit coupler 330 (FIG. 3) with a Josephson junction having a non-linear Josephson junction of energy EJ, the superconducting LC resonator coupler 430 comprises a linear inductance resulting in a quantum harmonic oscillator with energy levels that are equidistantly spaced apart.”)
Claim 8:
The system of claim 7, wherein the capacitive coupling to the first and second sets of fluxonium hardware components causes the harmonic oscillator to inherit a positive anharmonicity, such that: a frequency corresponding to a transition frequency between a first excited state and a second excited state of energy states enabled by the configuration of the harmonic oscillator is greater than another frequency corresponding to a transition frequency between a ground state and the first excited state of the energy states enabled by the configuration of the harmonic oscillator. (Finck, para. 0029 and 0050 and fig. 3: “The term “anharmonicity” as used herein refers to a difference between (i) the frequency (f01) to transition from the ground state |0 [Image Omitted] to the first excited state |1 [Image Omitted] and (ii) the frequency (f12) to transition from first excited state |1 [Image Omitted] to the second excited state |2 [Image Omitted] , of the qubit.” “As compared to me transmon qubit coupler 330 (FIG. 3) with a Josephson junction having a non-linear Josephson junction of energy EJ, the superconducting LC resonator coupler 430 comprises a linear inductance resulting in a quantum harmonic oscillator with energy levels that are equidistantly spaced apart” Examiner notes fig. 3 Finck teaches aJosephson junction which is an anharmonic system wherein spacing increases with excitation level and frequency increases from ground to first and then from first to second).
Claim 9:
The system of claim 1, wherein the first set of fluxonium hardware components and the second set of fluxonium hardware components respectively comprise: an inductor; a capacitor; and a Josephson junction. (Finck, para. 0001: “In general, superconducting qubits are electronic circuits which are implemented using components such as superconducting tunnel junctions (e.g., Josephson junctions), inductors, and/or capacitors, etc., and which behave as quantum mechanical anharmonic (non-linear) oscillators with quantized states, when cooled to cryogenic temperatures.”)
Claim 12:
A method, comprising: performing an entangling gate between a first fluxonium qubit and a second fluxonium qubit, coupled together using a resonator coupler, wherein said performing comprises: (Finck, para. 0075: “In addition, the second and third curves 802 and 803 illustrate a relatively large amount of longitudinal coupling between the superconducting LC resonator coupler and the first and second fluxonium qubits Q1 and Q2, wherein such longitudinal coupling is sufficient to implement a entanglement gate between the first and second fluxonium qubits Q1 and Q2 through mediation of the superconducting LC resonator coupler, without direct exchange coupling between the first and second fluxonium qubits Q1 and Q2.”)
modulating charge of the resonator coupler, using a microwave pulse, for a duration of the entangling gate, wherein said modulating the charge comprises: (Finck, para. 0036: “In addition, the axis of rotation about a given axis of the Bloch sphere 100 (e.g., X-axis and/or Y-axis) and the amount (angle) of such rotation are based, respectively, on the phase of the microwave control signal, and the amplitude and duration of the microwave control signal.”)
conditional on the first and second fluxonium qubits being in respective first excited states, driving the resonator coupler from a ground state of the resonator coupler to a first excited state of the resonator coupler; and driving the resonator coupler back from the first excited state of the resonator coupler to the ground state of the resonator coupler; and (Finck, para. 0049: “ In some embodiments, to perform an entanglement gate operation, a suitably calibrated control pulse is applied to the transmon qubit coupler 330 through a coupler drive line that is capacitively coupled to, e.g., the first node N1 of the transmon qubit coupler 330 to drive the transmon qubit coupler 330 through a full 2π rotation around the X-axis of the Bloch sphere (e.g., from ground state |0 [Image Omitted] to the first excited state |1 [Image Omitted] , and back to the ground state |0 [Image Omitted] ). This full 2π rotation causes the first and second fluxonium qubits 310 and 320 to be exchanged coupled to the transmon qubit coupler 330 and exchange energy to thereby enable interaction between the first and second fluxonium qubits 310 and 320 and perform an entanglement gate operation.” Examiner notes Finck also teaches at 0050, the LC resonator coupler of fig 4 operates similarly to the quantum circuit described above.)
conditional on one or both of the first and second fluxonium qubits being in respective ground states, maintaining the resonator coupler in a ground state of the resonator coupler for the duration of the entangling gate. (Finck, para. 0049: “ In some embodiments, to perform an entanglement gate operation, a suitably calibrated control pulse is applied to the transmon qubit coupler 330 through a coupler drive line that is capacitively coupled to, e.g., the first node N1 of the transmon qubit coupler 330 to drive the transmon qubit coupler 330 through a full 2π rotation around the X-axis of the Bloch sphere (e.g., from ground state |0 [Image Omitted] to the first excited state |1 [Image Omitted] , and back to the ground state |0 [Image Omitted] ). This full 2π rotation causes the first and second fluxonium qubits 310 and 320 to be exchanged coupled to the transmon qubit coupler 330 and exchange energy to thereby enable interaction between the first and second fluxonium qubits 310 and 320 and perform an entanglement gate operation.” Examiner notes the phrase “a duration of the entangling gate” is interpreted broadly a resonator coupler being in a ground state during any duration of an entangling gate, including initially and at the end of the operation where a it begins and ends in a grounds state)
Claim 14:
The method of claim 12, wherein said modulating the charge of the resonator coupler, using the microwave pulse, for the duration of the entangling gate further comprises: conditional on the first and second fluxonium qubits being in respective first excited states, driving, within the duration of the entangling gate, a phase shift of π. (Finck, para. 0027: “The state of a qubit can be changed by applying a single-qubit gate operation to the qubit, which causes the current state of the qubit to rotate around, e.g., the X-axis, Y-axis, X-Y axis, or Z-axis, etc., depending on the given gate operation. A rotation about the Z-axis results in a change in the angle ϕ. In addition, qubits can be controlled using entanglement gate operations to entangle the states of two or more qubits and, thereby, generate a combined state of two or more qubits which contains more information than the individual states of the qubits.” Examiner notes a phase shift of π corresponds to a rotation about the z-axis as taught by Finck)
Claim 17:
A quantum hardware device, comprising: a first set of fluxonium hardware components configured to implement a first fluxonium qubit; a second set of fluxonium hardware components, configured to: implement a second fluxonium qubit; and (Curtis, para. 0040: “ In some implementations, the quantum information processor includes a superconducting circuit, and the qubits can be implemented as fluxonium devices, transmon devices or another type of device that includes one or more Josephson junctions.” Examiner notes Curtis teaches multiple qubits i.e. at least a first and a second).
be capacitively coupled to the first set of fluxonium hardware components; (Curtis, para. 0040: “In some cases, the qubit devices are interconnected by electronic components or other connections in the superconducting circuit. In some implementations, the qubits can be implemented as trapped ions in an ion trap system. In some cases, the trapped ions are interconnected by optical media or connections in the ion trap system. Data qubits may be implemented and interconnected using other types of hardware.”)
a resonator coupler, configured to be respectively coupled to the first set of fluxonium hardware components and to the second set of fluxonium hardware components; and (Finck, para. 0075: “In addition, the second and third curves 802 and 803 illustrate a relatively large amount of longitudinal coupling between the superconducting LC resonator coupler and the first and second fluxonium qubits Q1 and Q2, wherein such longitudinal coupling is sufficient to implement a entanglement gate between the first and second fluxonium qubits Q1 and Q2 through mediation of the superconducting LC resonator coupler, without direct exchange coupling between the first and second fluxonium qubits Q1 and Q2.”)
a drive, configured to emit a microwave pulse to cause an entangling gate between the first and second fluxonium qubits to be performed based, at least in part, on charge modulation of the resonator coupler. (Finck, para. 0036: “In addition, the axis of rotation about a given axis of the Bloch sphere 100 (e.g., X-axis and/or Y-axis) and the amount (angle) of such rotation are based, respectively, on the phase of the microwave control signal, and the amplitude and duration of the microwave control signal.”)
It would have obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the present application to combine the teachings of Curtis into Finck as set forth above with respect to claim 1.
Claim 18:
The quantum hardware device of claim 17, wherein, to perform the entangling gate, the quantum hardware device is further configured to: conditional on the first and second fluxonium qubits being in respective first excited states, drive, using the emitted microwave pulse (Finck, para. 0036: “In addition, the axis of rotation about a given axis of the Bloch sphere 100 (e.g., X-axis and/or Y-axis) and the amount (angle) of such rotation are based, respectively, on the phase of the microwave control signal, and the amplitude and duration of the microwave control signal.”), the resonator coupler from a ground state of the resonator coupler to a first excited state of the resonator coupler; drive, using the emitted microwave pulse (Finck, para. 0036: “In addition, the axis of rotation about a given axis of the Bloch sphere 100 (e.g., X-axis and/or Y-axis) and the amount (angle) of such rotation are based, respectively, on the phase of the microwave control signal, and the amplitude and duration of the microwave control signal.”), the resonator coupler back from the first excited state of the resonator coupler to the ground state of the resonator coupler; and (Finck, para. 0049: “ In some embodiments, to perform an entanglement gate operation, a suitably calibrated control pulse is applied to the transmon qubit coupler 330 through a coupler drive line that is capacitively coupled to, e.g., the first node N1 of the transmon qubit coupler 330 to drive the transmon qubit coupler 330 through a full 2π rotation around the X-axis of the Bloch sphere (e.g., from ground state |0 [Image Omitted] to the first excited state |1 [Image Omitted] , and back to the ground state |0 [Image Omitted] ). This full 2π rotation causes the first and second fluxonium qubits 310 and 320 to be exchanged coupled to the transmon qubit coupler 330 and exchange energy to thereby enable interaction between the first and second fluxonium qubits 310 and 320 and perform an entanglement gate operation.” Examiner notes Finck also teaches at 0050, the LC resonator coupler of fig 4 operates similarly to the quantum circuit described above.)
drive, within a duration of the entangling gate, a phase shift of π. (Finck, para. 0027: “The state of a qubit can be changed by applying a single-qubit gate operation to the qubit, which causes the current state of the qubit to rotate around, e.g., the X-axis, Y-axis, X-Y axis, or Z-axis, etc., depending on the given gate operation. A rotation about the Z-axis results in a change in the angle ϕ. In addition, qubits can be controlled using entanglement gate operations to entangle the states of two or more qubits and, thereby, generate a combined state of two or more qubits which contains more information than the individual states of the qubits.” Examiner notes a phase shift of π corresponds to a rotation about the z-axis as taught by Pinck)
Claim 19:
The quantum hardware device of claim 17, wherein, to perform the entangling gate, the quantum hardware device is further configured to: conditional on one or both of the first and second fluxonium qubits being in respective ground states, maintain, using the emitted microwave pulse (Finck, para. 0036: “In addition, the axis of rotation about a given axis of the Bloch sphere 100 (e.g., X-axis and/or Y-axis) and the amount (angle) of such rotation are based, respectively, on the phase of the microwave control signal, and the amplitude and duration of the microwave control signal.”), the resonator coupler in a ground state of the resonator coupler for a duration of the entangling gate. (Finck, para. 0049: “ In some embodiments, to perform an entanglement gate operation, a suitably calibrated control pulse is applied to the transmon qubit coupler 330 through a coupler drive line that is capacitively coupled to, e.g., the first node N1 of the transmon qubit coupler 330 to drive the transmon qubit coupler 330 through a full 2π rotation around the X-axis of the Bloch sphere (e.g., from ground state |0 [Image Omitted] to the first excited state |1 [Image Omitted] , and back to the ground state |0 [Image Omitted] ). This full 2π rotation causes the first and second fluxonium qubits 310 and 320 to be exchanged coupled to the transmon qubit coupler 330 and exchange energy to thereby enable interaction between the first and second fluxonium qubits 310 and 320 and perform an entanglement gate operation.” Examiner notes the phrase “a duration of the entangling gate” is interpreted broadly a resonator coupler being in a ground state during any duration of an entangling gate, including initially and at the end of the operation where a it begins and ends in a grounds state)
Claim 20:
The quantum hardware device of claim 17, wherein the resonator coupler is a linear oscillator and is fabricated using Tantalum. (Finck, para. 0052: “The circuit elements can be formed using various types of superconductor materials that are suitable for a given application, including, but not limited to, elementary metals such as niobium (Nb), aluminum (Al), tantalum (Ta), and compound such as titanium nitride (TiN), niobium nitride (NbN), niobium titanium nitride (NbTiN), etc”)
Claims 10-11, 13, and 15-16 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Finck, in view of Curtis and further in view of Peterson, et. al. (US 11494681 B1; hereinafter, “Peterson”)
Claim 10:
The system of claim 1, wherein: the one or more classical computing devices are further configured to: provide additional drive control instructions to the one or more quantum hardware devices for performance of a calibration protocol; and (Peterson, col. 6, ln. 30-39, fig. 2: “In the environment of FIG. 2, access nodes 210 are any device that can access the functionality of the quantum cloud system 230. In some configurations, access nodes 210 are classical computing devices adapted to execute classical computer programs (e.g. access node 210A). A typical access node 210 can be a lap-top computer, tablet, or cell-phone, or any other client device. The access nodes 210 include software applications, such as application 212, which execute on the processor of the respective access node 210.”)
the one or more quantum hardware devices are further configured to: perform the calibration protocol; and provide results of the calibration protocol to the one or more classical computing devices. (Peterson, col. 6, ln 56-63: “In some cases, application 212 uses an application programming interface (API) 214 to communicate with the quantum cloud system 230 through the network 220. The API 214 can expose the application 212 to a quantum machine instruction library. The quantum machine instruction library may include, for example, calibration procedures, hardware tests, pre-generated algorithms, quantum gates, etc.”)
It would have obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the present application to combine the teachings of Peterson into Finck, as modified. Peterson teaches a compiler for a gate-based superconducting quantum computer can compile a hybrid classical/quantum algorithm for quantum processing cells with different configurations and/or different calibration settings. One of ordinary skill would have been motivated to combine the teachings of Peterson into Finck, as modified in order to enable differently-configured quantum computing systems to execute the same program (Peterson, col. 5 lns. 1-2).
Claim 11:
The system of claim 10, wherein the one or more classical computing devices are further configured to: determine an updated performance metric, with respect to a performance metric prior to the performance of the calibration protocol, of the one or more quantum hardware devices, based at least in part, on the results of the calibration protocol, wherein the performance metric and the updated performance metric comprise a rate of expected coherent errors; (Peterson, col. 17, ln. 55-64: “In some instances, on each clock cycle the classical processing system 400 generates control signals to implement a subset of instructions, control signals are delivered to the quantum computation system 300, and qubit readout signals are delivered to the classical processing system 400. The control signals delivered on each clock cycle can be configured, for example, based on the sequence of instructions, based on readout signals from a previous cycle, quantum error correction operations, error matching calculations, other information, or a combination of these.” Examiner notes Peterson teaches cyclic calibration including updated performance metrics based on previous cycles).
adjust one or more parameters of the drive control instructions for the entangling gate based, at least in part, on a change in the updated performance metric with respect to the performance metric prior to the performance of the calibration protocol, (Peterson, col. 18, ln. 59 – col. 19 ln. 1: “Addressed quantum instructions 532 are input into the compressor 540, and the compressor 540 outputs optimized quantum instructions 542. Optimized quantum instructions 542 are addressed quantum instructions 532 that are processed to produce semantically equivalent quantum instruction sequences that are more efficient. That is, the compressor 540 analyzes the addressed quantum instructions 532 and determines sequences of quantum instructions that can be implemented more efficiently without changing the result 224 of the algorithm 222. Efficiency, here, can be any measure of improvement over the input addressed quantum instructions 532.”)
wherein the one or more parameters comprise one or more of: a frequency of the microwave pulse; the duration of the entangling gate; or an envelope shape of the microwave pulse; and (Finck, para 0036: “In addition, the axis of rotation about a given axis of the Bloch sphere 100 (e.g., X-axis and/or Y-axis) and the amount (angle) of such rotation are based, respectively, on the phase of the microwave control signal, and the amplitude and duration of the microwave control signal.”)
provide the adjusted drive control instructions to the one or more quantum hardware devices for performance of another entangling gate. (Peterson, col. 36 ln. 41-52: “In another example, the compiler 410 may assign 950 quantum instructions to qubits based on the gate performance relative to a qubit. In this case, certain quantum instructions may be scheduled on a qubit that has higher fidelity relative to other qubits. In another example, the compiler 410 may assign 950 quantum instructions to qubits based on the graph degree of the quantum instructions (e.g., a number of incident edges in a quantum circuit). Similarly/alternatively, the compiler 410 may assign 950 quantum instructions to qubits that have locally convenient graph degrees. Many other examples are possible.”)
It would have obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the present application to combine the teachings of Peterson into Finck, as modified, as set forth above with respect to claim 10.
Claim 13:
The method of claim 12, further comprising: subsequent to said performing the entangling gate, providing quantum information pertaining to updated quantum states of the first and the second fluxonium qubits, with respect to initial quantum states of the first and the second fluxonium qubits, prior to said performing the entangling gate. (Peterson, col. 18, ln 55-64: “In some instances, on each clock cycle the classical processing system 400 generates control signals to implement a subset of instructions, control signals are delivered to the quantum computation system 300, and qubit readout signals are delivered to the classical processing system 400. The control signals delivered on each clock cycle can be configured, for example, based on the sequence of instructions, based on readout signals from a previous cycle, quantum error correction operations, error matching calculations, other information, or a combination of these.” Examiner notes Peterson teaches cyclic calibration including updated performance metrics based on previous cycles).
It would have obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the present application to combine the teachings of Peterson into Finck, as modified, as set forth above with respect to claim 10.
Claim 15:
The method of claim 12, further comprising: performing a calibration protocol on quantum hardware components that implement the first and second fluxonium qubits and on hardware components that implement the resonator coupler; (Peterson, col. 6, lns. 56-63: “In some cases, application 212 uses an application programming interface (API) 214 to communicate with the quantum cloud system 230 through the network 220. The API 214 can expose the application 212 to a quantum machine instruction library. The quantum machine instruction library may include, for example, calibration procedures, hardware tests, pre-generated algorithms, quantum gates, etc.”)
determining an updated performance metric, with respect to a performance metric prior to the performance of the calibration protocol, of the first and second fluxonium qubits and of the resonator coupler, based at least in part, on results of the calibration protocol; and (Peterson, col. 17 lns. 55-64: “In some instances, on each clock cycle the classical processing system 400 generates control signals to implement a subset of instructions, control signals are delivered to the quantum computation system 300, and qubit readout signals are delivered to the classical processing system 400. The control signals delivered on each clock cycle can be configured, for example, based on the sequence of instructions, based on readout signals from a previous cycle, quantum error correction operations, error matching calculations, other information, or a combination of these.” Examiner notes Peterson teaches cyclic calibration including updated performance metrics based on previous cycles).
adjusting one or more parameters of the entangling gate based, at least in part, on determining that the updated performance metric has changed with respect to the performance metric prior to the performance of the calibration protocol, (Peterson, col. 18 ln. 59 – col. 19 ln. 3: “Addressed quantum instructions 532 are input into the compressor 540, and the compressor 540 outputs optimized quantum instructions 542. Optimized quantum instructions 542 are addressed quantum instructions 532 that are processed to produce semantically equivalent quantum instruction sequences that are more efficient. That is, the compressor 540 analyzes the addressed quantum instructions 532 and determines sequences of quantum instructions that can be implemented more efficiently without changing the result 224 of the algorithm 222. Efficiency, here, can be any measure of improvement over the input addressed quantum instructions 532.”)
wherein the one or more parameters comprise one or more of the following: a frequency of the microwave pulse; the duration of the entangling gate; and an envelope shape of the microwave pulse. (Finck, para. 0036: “In addition, the axis of rotation about a given axis of the Bloch sphere 100 (e.g., X-axis and/or Y-axis) and the amount (angle) of such rotation are based, respectively, on the phase of the microwave control signal, and the amplitude and duration of the microwave control signal.”)
It would have obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the present application to combine the teachings of Peterson into Finck, as modified, as set forth above with respect to claim 10.
Claim 16:
The method of claim 15, wherein the performance metric and the updated performance metric comprise a rate of expected coherent errors. (Peterson, col. 17 lns. 55-64: “In some instances, on each clock cycle the classical processing system 400 generates control signals to implement a subset of instructions, control signals are delivered to the quantum computation system 300, and qubit readout signals are delivered to the classical processing system 400. The control signals delivered on each clock cycle can be configured, for example, based on the sequence of instructions, based on readout signals from a previous cycle, quantum error correction operations, error matching calculations, other information, or a combination of these.” Examiner notes Peterson teaches cyclic calibration including updated performance metrics based on previous cycles).
It would have obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the present application to combine the teachings of Peterson into Finck, as modified, as set forth above with respect to claim 10.
Prior Art
Finck, et. al (US 11658660 B1) teaches superconducting quantum computing and, in particular, superconducting quantum systems and devices that are implemented using superconducting quantum bits (qubits).
Moskalenko, I.N., Simakov, I.A., Abramov, N.N. et al. (High fidelity two-qubit gates on fluxoniums using a tunable coupler. npj Quantum Inf 8, 130 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41534-022-00644-x) teaches a two-qubit fluxonium-based quantum processor with a tunable coupler element.
Search Notes
PE2E search notes most relevant: L14 CPC with keywords
Most relevant Google Scholar search: “resonator coupler ground state qubits excited states drive fluxonium”
IP.com most relevant search: quantum hardware devices fluxonium qubit drive control instructions
Conclusion
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/STL/Examiner, Art Unit 2147
/NHAT HUY T NGUYEN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2147