Quantum Error Suppression in Surface Codes
Quantum Error Suppression in Surface Codes
Accepted: 10 October 2022 Practical quantum computing will require error rates well below those achievable
Published online: 22 February 2023 with physical qubits. Quantum error correction1,2 offers a path to algorithmically
relevant error rates by encoding logical qubits within many physical qubits,
Open access
for which increasing the number of physical qubits enhances protection against
Check for updates physical errors. However, introducing more qubits also increases the number
of error sources, so the density of errors must be sufficiently low for logical
performance to improve with increasing code size. Here we report the
measurement of logical qubit performance scaling across several code sizes,
and demonstrate that our system of superconducting qubits has sufficient
performance to overcome the additional errors from increasing qubit number.
We find that our distance-5 surface code logical qubit modestly outperforms an
ensemble of distance-3 logical qubits on average, in terms of both logical error
probability over 25 cycles and logical error per cycle ((2.914 ± 0.016)% compared
to (3.028 ± 0.023)%). To investigate damaging, low-probability error sources, we run
a distance-25 repetition code and observe a 1.7 × 10−6 logical error per cycle floor set
by a single high-energy event (1.6 × 10−7 excluding this event). We accurately model
our experiment, extracting error budgets that highlight the biggest challenges
for future systems. These results mark an experimental demonstration in which
quantum error correction begins to improve performance with increasing qubit
number, illuminating the path to reaching the logical error rates required for
computation.
*A list of authors and their affiliations appears at the end of the paper.
Cumulative distribution
ZL 1
distance-3 logical qubit subgrids, each containing nine data qubits
and eight measure qubits. These distance-3 logical qubits cover the
four quadrants of the distance-5 code with minimal qubit overlap,
capturing the average performance of the full distance-5 grid.
0 In a single instance of the experiment, we initialize the logical qubit
10–3 10–2 state, run several cycles of error correction, and then measure the final
Pauli and measurement
error rates logical state. We show an example in Fig. 2a. To prepare a ZL eigenstate,
we first prepare each data qubit in |0⟩ or |1⟩ , an eigenstate of the
XL Data qubit (d2) Z stabilizers. The first cycle of stabilizer measurements then projects
Measure qubit (d2 – 1)
the data qubits into an entangled state that is also an eigenstate of the
Unused
Subset distance-3
X stabilizers. Each cycle contains CZ and Hadamard gates sequenced
to extract X and Z stabilizers simultaneously, and ends with the meas-
b
urement and reset of the measure qubits. In the final cycle, we also
measure the data qubits in the Z basis, yielding both parity information
and a measurement of the logical state. Preparing and measuring XL
eigenstates proceeds analogously. The instance succeeds if the
corrected logical measurement agrees with the known initial state;
Time
otherwise, a logical error has occurred.
Our stabilizer circuits contain a few modifications to the standard
Fig. 1 | Implementing surface code logical qubits. a, Schematic of a 72-qubit
gate sequence described above (see Supplementary Information),
Sycamore device with a distance-5 surface code embedded, consisting of 25 data
including phase corrections to correct for unintended qubit frequency
qubits (gold) and 24 measure qubits (blue). Each measure qubit is associated
with a stabilizer (blue coloured tile, dark: X, light: Z). Representative logical
shifts and dynamical decoupling gates during qubit idles43. We also
operators ZL (black) and XL (green) traverse the array, intersecting at the lower- remove certain Hadamard gates to implement the ZXXZ variant of the
left data qubit. The upper right quadrant (red outline) is one of four subset surface code44,45, which helps symmetrize the X- and Z-basis logical error
distance-3 codes (the four quadrants) that we compare to distance-5. rates. Finally, during initialization, the data qubits are prepared into
b, Illustration of a stabilizer measurement, focusing on one data qubit (labelled ψ) randomly selected bitstrings. This ensures that we do not preferentially
and one measure qubit (labelled 0), in perspective view with time progressing to measure even parities in the first few cycles of the code, which could
the right. Each qubit participates in four CZ gates (black) with its four nearest artificially lower logical error rates owing to bias in measurement error
neighbours, interspersed with Hadamard gates (H), and finally, the measure (see Supplementary Information).
qubit is measured and reset to |0⟩ (MR). Data qubits perform dynamical
decoupling (DD) while waiting for the measurement and reset. All stabilizers are
measured in this manner concurrently. Cycle duration is 921 ns, including 25-ns Error detectors
single-qubit gates, 34-ns two-qubit gates, 500-ns measurement and 160-ns reset
After initialization, parity measurements should produce the same
(see Supplementary Information for compilation details). The readout and reset
value in each cycle, up to known flips applied by the circuit. If we com-
take up most of the cycle time, so the concurrent data qubit idling is a dominant
source of error. c, Cumulative distributions of errors for single-qubit gates (1Q),
pare a parity measurement to the corresponding measurement in the
CZ gates, measurement (Meas.) and data qubit dynamical decoupling preceding cycle and their values are inconsistent, a detection event
(idle during measurement and reset), which we refer to as component errors. has occurred, indicating an error. We refer to these comparisons as
The circuits were benchmarked in simultaneous operation using random circuit detectors.
techniques, on the 49 qubits used in distance-5 and the 4 CZ layers from the The detection event probabilities for each detector indicate the
stabilizer circuit38,59 (see Supplementary Information). Vertical lines are means. distribution of physical errors in space and time while running the
surface code. In Fig. 2, we show the detection event probabilities in
the distance-5 code (Fig. 2b,c) and the distance-3 codes (Fig. 2d,e) run-
ning for 25 cycles, as measured over 50,000 experimental instances.
determine the overall effect of these inferred errors on the logical qubit, For the weight-4 stabilizers, the average detection probability is
thus preserving the logical state. Most surface code logical gates can 0.185 ± 0.018 (1σ) in the distance-5 code and 0.175 ± 0.017 averaged
be implemented by maintaining logical memory and executing differ- over the distance-3 codes. The weight-2 stabilizers interact with fewer
ent sequences of measurements on the code boundary35–37. Thus, we qubits and hence detect fewer errors. Correspondingly, they yield a
focus on preserving logical memory, the core technical challenge in lower average detection probability of 0.119 ± 0.012 in the distance-5
operating the surface code. code and 0.115 ± 0.008 averaged over the distance-3 codes. The relative
We implement the surface code on an expanded Sycamore device38 consistency between code distances suggests that growing the lattice
with 72 transmon qubits39 and 121 tunable couplers40,41. Each qubit is does not substantially increase the component error rates during error
coupled to four nearest neighbours except on the boundaries, with correction.
mean qubit coherence times T1 = 20 μs and T2,CPMG = 30 μs, in which The average detection probabilities exhibit a relative rise of 12% for
CPMG represents Carr–Purcell–Meiboom–Gill. As in ref. 42, we imple- distance-5 and 8% for distance-3 over 25 cycles, with a typical character-
ment single-qubit rotations, controlled-Z (CZ) gates, reset and measure- istic risetime of roughly 5 cycles (see Supplementary Information). We
ment, demonstrating similar or improved simultaneous performance attribute this rise to data qubits leaking into non-computational excited
as shown in Fig. 1c. states and anticipate that the inclusion of leakage-removal techniques
The distance-5 surface code logical qubit is encoded on a 49-qubit on data qubits would help to mitigate this rise42,46–48. We reason that
subset of the device, with 25 data qubits and 24 measure qubits. Each the greater increase in detection probability in the distance-5 code is
measure qubit corresponds to one stabilizer, classified by its basis due to increased stray interactions or leakage from simultaneously
(X or Z) and the number of data qubits involved (weight, 2 or 4). Ideally, operating more gates and measurements.
to assess how logical performance scales with code size, we would We test our understanding of the physical noise in our system by
compare distance-5 and distance-3 logical qubits under identical noise. comparing the experimental data to a simulation. We begin with a
Timelike pair
Meas. error
b c d e f g h
0.25 0.05 Exp.
Pauli+
Detection prob., pd
Correlation, pij
0.15 0.03
0.10 0.02
0.05 Weight-4 Weight-4 Weight-4 0.01
Weight-2 Weight-2 Weight-2
0 0
0 5 10 15 20 25 0.10 0.25 0 5 10 15 20 25 0.10 0.25 0 5 10 15 20 25
Unexp.
Time
Space
Spacetime
0.10 0.25
QEC cycle, t pd QEC cycle, t pd QEC cycle, t pd
Fig. 2 | Error detection in the surface code. a, Illustration of a surface code correction. c, Detection probability heatmap, averaging over t = 1 to 24.
experiment, in perspective view with time progressing to the right. We begin d,e, Similar to b,c for four separate distance-3 experiments covering the four
with an initial data qubit state that has known parities in one stabilizer basis quadrants of the distance-5 code. f,g, Similar to b,c using a simulation with Pauli
(here, Z). We show example errors that manifest in detection pairs: a Z error errors plus leakage, crosstalk and stray interactions (Pauli+). h, Bar chart
(red) on a data qubit (spacelike pair), a measurement error (purple) on a measure summarizing the detection correlation matrix pij, comparing the distance-5
qubit (timelike pair), an X error (blue) during the CZ gates (spacetimelike pair) experiment from b to the simulation in f (Pauli+) and a simpler simulation with
and a measurement error (green) on a data qubit (detected in the final inferred only Pauli errors. We aggregate four groups of correlations: timelike pairs;
Z parities). b, Detection probability for each stabilizer over a 25-cycle distance-5 spacelike pairs; spacetimelike pairs expected for Pauli noise; and spacetimelike
experiment (50,000 repetitions). Darker lines: average over all stabilizers with pairs unexpected for Pauli noise (Unexp.), including correlations over two
the same weight. There are fewer detections at timestep t = 0 because there is timesteps. Each bar shows a mean and standard deviation of correlations from a
no preceding syndrome extraction, and at t = 25 because the final parities are 25-cycle, 50,000-repetition dataset.
calculated from data qubit measurements directly. QEC, quantum error
depolarizing noise simulation based on the component error informa- and averaged according to the different classes of pairs. In addition to
tion in Fig. 1c, and then extend to a Pauli simulation with qubit-specific T1 the expected pairs, we also quantify how often detection pairs occur
and T2,CPMG, transitions to leaked states, and stray interactions between that are unexpected in a local depolarizing circuit model. Overall, the
qubits during CZ gates (see Supplementary Information). We refer Pauli simulation systematically underpredicts these probabilities
to this simulation as Pauli+. Figure 2f shows that this second simula- compared to experimental data, whereas the Pauli+ simulation is closer
tor accurately predicts the average detection probabilities, finding and predicts the presence of unexpected pairs, which we surmise are
0.180 ± 0.013 for the weight-4 stabilizers and 0.116 ± 0.011 for the related to leakage and stray interactions. These errors can be espe-
weight-2 stabilizers, with average detection probabilities increasing cially harmful to the surface code because they can generate multiple
7% over 25 cycles (distance-5). detection events distantly separated in space or time, which a decoder
might wrongly interpret as multiple independent component errors.
We expect that mitigating leakage and stray interactions will become
Understanding errors through correlations increasingly important as error rates decrease.
We next examine pairwise correlations between detection events, which
give us fine-grained information about which types of error are occur-
ring during error correction. Figure 2a illustrates a few examples of Decoding and logical error probabilities
pairwise detections that are generated by X or Z errors in the surface We next examine the logical performance of our surface code qubits.
code. Measurement and reset errors are detected by the same stabilizer To infer the error-corrected logical measurement, the decoder requires
in two consecutive cycles, which we classify as a timelike pair. Data a probability model for physical error events. This information may
qubits may experience an X (Z) error while idling during measurement be expressed as an error hypergraph: detectors are vertices, physical
that is detected by its neighbouring Z (X) stabilizers in the same cycle, error mechanisms are hyperedges connecting the detectors they trig-
forming a spacelike pair. Errors during CZ gates may cause a variety ger, and each hyperedge is assigned its corresponding error mecha-
of pairwise detections to occur, including spacetimelike pairs that are nism probability. We use a generalization of pij to determine these
separated in both space and time. More complex clusters of detection probabilities42,50.
events arise when a Y error occurs, which generates detection events Given the error hypergraph, we implement two different decoders:
for both X and Z errors. belief-matching, an efficient combination of belief propagation and
To estimate the probability for each detection event pair from our minimum-weight perfect matching51; and tensor network decoding,
data, we compute an appropriately normalized correlation pij between a slow but accurate approximate maximum-likelihood decoder. The
detection events occurring on any two detectors i and j (refs. 42,49; belief-matching decoder first runs belief propagation on the error
see Supplementary Information). In Fig. 2h, we show the estimated prob- hypergraph to update hyperedge error probabilities based on nearby
abilities for experimental and simulated distance-5 data, aggregated detection events51,52. The updated error hypergraph is then decomposed
Over time, we improved our physical error rates, for example by opti-
imp
0.92 H5 mizing single- and two-qubit gates, measurement and data qubit idling
tem
=
H3 (see Supplementary Information). In Fig. 3c, we show the corresponding
Sys
1Q 10–2 To understand how our surface code results project forwards to future
Surface code error budget, 1//
10–3 ranging from distance-3 to 25, while also scaling the physical error
Measure
0.6 rates shown in Fig. 1c. For efficiency, the simulation considers only Pauli
DD 10–4 errors. Figure 4c,d illustrates the contours of this parameter space,
which has three distinct regions. When the physical error rate is high
0.4 CZ
stray 10–5 (for example, the initial runs of our surface code in Fig. 3c), logical error
int. probability increases with increasing system size (εd+2 > εd). On the other
0.2 10–6 Surface code hand, low physical error rates show the desired exponential suppression
CZ Repetition code of logical error (εd+2 < εd). This threshold behaviour can be subtle58, and
Removed high-energy event
0 10–7 there exists a crossover regime in which, owing to finite-size effects,
3 5 15 25 increasing system size initially suppresses the logical error per cycle
Code distance, d before later increasing it. We believe our experiment lies in this regime.
c d
Although our device is close to threshold, reaching algorithmically
regime crossover
Hd < Hd+2 relevant logical error rates with manageable resources will require an
Error model scale factor, s
Hd =
H3 = H5 0.0 0.05 s = 1.2
1.2 50 error-suppression factor Λd/(d+2) ≫ 1. On the basis of the error budget
H7 = H9 Hd = 0.0
Hd = 0.0 6
3 0.04 s = 1.1 and simulations in Fig. 4, we estimate that component performance
1.1 30
must improve by at least 20% to move below threshold, and substan-
Hd = 0.020 0.03
1.0 H23 = H25 tially improve beyond that to achieve practical scaling. However, these
H d = 0.014 0.02 s = 1.0 projections rely on simplified models and must be validated experi-
threshold
.010
Below
0.9 Hd = 0
0.01 s = 0.9 mentally, testing larger code sizes with longer durations to eventu-
Hd > Hd+2
ally realize the desired logical performance. This work demonstrates
0.8 0
3 5 15 25 3 5 15 25 the first step in that process, suppressing logical errors by scaling a
Surface code distance, d Surface code distance, d quantum error-correcting code—the foundation of a fault-tolerant
quantum computer.
Fig. 4 | Towards algorithmically relevant error rates. a, Estimated error
budget for the surface code, based on component errors (see Fig. 1c) and Pauli+
simulations. Λ 3/5 = ε 3/ε 5. CZ, contributions from CZ error (excluding leakage
Online content
and stray interactions). CZ stray int., CZ error from unwanted interactions.
DD, dynamical decoupling (data qubit idle error during measurement and reset). Any methods, additional references, Nature Portfolio reporting summa-
Measure, measurement and reset error. Leakage, leakage during CZs and due ries, source data, extended data, supplementary information, acknowl-
to heating. 1Q, single-qubit gate error. b, Logical error for repetition codes. edgements, peer review information; details of author contributions
Inset: schematic of the distance-25 repetition code, using the same data and and competing interests; and statements of data and code availability
measure qubits as the distance-5 surface code. Smaller codes are subsampled are available at https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-022-05434-1.
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Acknowledgements We are grateful to S. Brin, S. Pichai, R. Porat, J. Dean, E. Collins and Competing interests The authors declare no competing interests.
J. Yagnik for their executive sponsorship of the Google Quantum AI team, and for their
continued engagement and support. A portion of this work was performed in the University Additional information
of California, Santa Barbara Nanofabrication Facility, an open access laboratory. J.M. Supplementary information The online version contains supplementary material available at
acknowledges support from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-022-05434-1.
Ames Research Center (NASA-Google SAA 403512), NASA Advanced Supercomputing Correspondence and requests for materials should be addressed to Hartmut Neven.
Division for access to NASA high-performance computing systems, and NASA Academic Peer review information Nature thanks Barbara Terhal, Boris Varbanov and the other,
Mission Services (NNA16BD14C). D.B. is a CIFAR Associate Fellow in the Quantum Information anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work. Peer reviewer
Science Program. reports are available.
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