Patent attributes
A first qubit having a superconducting loop interrupted by a plurality of Josephson junctions is provided. Each junction interrupts a different portion of the superconducting loop and each different adjacent pair of junctions in the plurality of Josephson junctions defines a different island. An ancillary device is coupled to the first qubit. In a first example, the ancillary device is a readout mechanism respectively capacitively coupled to a first and second island in the plurality of islands of the first qubit by a first and second capacitance. Quantum nondemolition measurement of the first qubit's state may be performed. In a second example, the ancillary device is a second qubit. The second qubit's first and second islands are respectively capacitively coupled to the first and second islands of the first qubit by a capacitance. In this second example, the coupling is diagonal in the physical basis of the qubits.