In this tutorial, I will give a practical overview of the measurements and techniques used to tune up and characterise a simple cavity QED superconducting quantum circuit for use in quantum information processing applications such as quantum computing and quantum simulations.  Think of this as an introduction to the bits that enable the flash results in papers, but mostly don’t make it into them.  In the process, I will cover some of the basic physics of a simple circuit QED system made up of transmon qubits and microwave resonators.

 After an overview of the experimental hardware surrounding and connecting to a quantum circuit,  I will cover topics like: how to find your qubit and make it move; moving from spectroscopy to pulsed experiments or learning to love your AWG (arbitrary waveform generator); tuning up qubit gates or how to get in control; controlling qubit-resonator interactions by fast qubit frequency tuning; listening to the environment through your qubit; and using your qubit to measure your quantum resonator.  The tutorial will run over two 1 1/2 hour sessions and I plan to keep the plan very relaxed so that there is plenty of time for discussion and questions.

 This tutorial should be useful for Bachelor and Master’s degree students who are interested in going into circuit QED, as well as graduate students and postdocs working in theory or other experimental platforms who would like to find it a bit easier to follow those confusing circuit QED papers and conference talks!

Please visit both days!