Exploring Superconducting Qubits for Quantum Computing

The field of superconducting qubits is currently dominated by the transmon qubit. Over the course of more than a decade, much effort has been devoted to enhancing this circuit's coherence times. Despite the remarkable success, we should ask: is the transmon the best we can do, and will it ultimately suffice for implementing quantum error correction and leaving the NISQ era behind? As I will show, there are interesting circuit alternatives with enhanced intrinsic protection from noise that may well play a decisive role in the future. I will give a tour of some of our recent work on noise-protected qubits, and illustrate how our open-source "scqubits" package has made it simpler than ever to explore the world of superconducting qubits.