Congratulations to Dr. Chih-Chiao Hung who successfully defended his Ph.D. doctoral thesis in Physics at the University of Maryland. His research recorded new data on multiple experiments in quantum information science. In two of the key studies, he finds new physical information on a qubit defect called a two-level systems. He studied these systems using two different quantum circuit types — one with defects hosted in deposited films, and a second one with defects hosted at the naturally occurring surface oxide of a superconductor.

His thesis advisor, Dr. Kevin Osborn explained, “Dr. Hung used custom quantum circuits throughout two studies in his thesis. In one, he acquired data on defects from different deposited dielectric films, where the dielectric is in the middle of a superconducting-dielectricsuperconducting tri-layer. However, when he changed to study defects on surfaces, he then made a superconductor-vacuum-superconductor structure called a vacuum-gap capacitor, which is challenging because it can’t merely be deposited as a trilayer. The superconductor surface is next to vacuum and has an important similarity to defects on the surfaces of qubits.”