Application of zero-noise extrapolation-based quantum error mitigation to a silicon spin qubit

Abstract

As quantum computing advances towards practical applications, reducing errors remains a crucial frontier for developing near-term devices. Errors in the quantum gates and quantum state readout could result in noisy circuits, which would prevent the acquisition of the exact expectation values of the observables. Although ultimate robustness to errors is known to be achievable by quantum error correction-based fault-tolerant quantum computing, its successful implementation demands large-scale quantum processors with low average error rates that are not yet widely available. In contrast, quantum error mitigation (QEM) offers more immediate and practical techniques, which do not require extensive resources and can be readily applied to existing quantum devices to improve the accuracy of the expectation values. Here, we report the implementation of a zero-noise extrapolation-based error mitigation technique on a silicon spin qubit platform. This technique has recently been successfully demonstrated for other platforms such as superconducting qubits, trapped-ion qubits, and photonic processors. We first explore three methods for amplifying noise on a silicon spin qubit: global folding, local folding, and pulse stretching, using a standard randomized benchmarking protocol. We then apply global folding-based zero-noise extrapolation to the state tomography and achieve a state fidelity of 99.96% (98.52%), compared to the unmitigated fidelity of 75.82% (82.16%) for different preparation states. The results show that the zero-noise extrapolation technique is a versatile approach that is generally adaptable to quantum computing platforms with different noise characteristics through appropriate noise amplification methods.