Staff Bios


"It is probably true that the individual genius contributed most to the advancement of scientific knowledge through the nineteenth century, but the rapid advance in this century has been to the collective efforts of individually free scientists..."

—William P. Allis
Professor of Physics

Bio — Oliver

posted July 21, 2016 at 4:07 pm

William D. Oliver is a principal investigator Associate Director in the Research Laboratory of Electronics (RLE) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Will’s research interests include the materials growth, fabrication, design, and measurement of superconducting qubits, as well as the development of cryogenic packaging and control electronics involving cryogenic CMOS and single-flux quantum digital logic. He is Fellow of the American Physical Society; serves on the US Committee for Superconducting Electronics; is an IEEE Applied Superconductivity Conference (ASC) Board Member; and is a member of IEEE, APS, Sigma Xi, Phi Beta Kappa, and Tau Beta Pi.

Will received his PhD in Electrical Engineering from the Stanford University, the SM in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from MIT, and a BS in Electrical Engineering and BA in Japanese from the University of Rochester (NY).

Selected Publications

  • S. Gustavsson, F. Yan, G. Catelani, J. Bylander, A. Kamal, J. Birenbaum, D. Hover, D. Rosenberg, G. Samach, A. P. Sears, S. Weber, J. L. Yoder, J. Clarke, A. J. Kerman, F. Yoshihara, Y. Nakamura, T. P. Orlando, W. D. Oliver, “Suppressing relaxation in superconducting qubits by quasiparticle pumping,” Science 354, 1573 (2016)
  • F. Yan, S. Gustavsson, A. Kamal, J. Birenbaum, A.P. Sears, D. Hover, T.J. Gudmundsen, D. Rosenberg, G. Samach, S. Weber, J.L. Yoder, T.P. Orlando, J. Clarke, A.J. Kerman, W.D. Oliver, “The flux qubit revisited to enhance coherence and reproducibility, Nature Communications 7, 12964 (2016).
  • C. Macklin, K. O’Brien, D. Hover, M.E. Schwartz, V. Bolkhovsky, X. Zhang, W.D. Oliver, I. Siddiqi, “A near-quantum-limited Josephson traveling-wave parametric amplifier,” Science 350, 307–310 (2015).
  • W.D. Oliver and P.B. Welander, ‘Materials in superconducting quantum bits,” MRS Bulletin, 38, 816–825 (2013).
  • F. Yan, S. Gustavsson, J. Bylander, X. Jin, F. Yoshihara, D.G. Cory, Y. Nakamura, T.P. Orlando, and W.D. Oliver, ‘Rotating-frame relaxation as a noise spectrum analyzer of a superconducting qubit undergoing driven evolution,” Nature Communications, 4, 2337 (2013).
  • S. Gustavsson, O. Zwier, J. Bylander, F. Yan, F. Yoshihara, Y. Nakamura, T.P. Orlando, and W.D. Oliver, “Improving quantum gate fidelities by using a qubit to measure microwave pulse distortions,” Phys. Rev. Lett. 110, 040502 (2013).
  • J. Bylander, S. Gustavsson, F. Yan, F. Yoshihara, K. Harrabi, G. Fitch, D.G. Cory, Y. Nakamura, J.S. Tsai, and W.D. Oliver, “Noise spectroscopy through dynamical decoupling with a superconducting flux qubit,” Nature Physics 7, 565–570 (2011).
  • D.M. Berns, M.S. Rudner, S.O. Valenzuela, K.K. Berggren, W.D. Oliver, L.S. Levitov, and T.P. Orlando, “Amplitude spectroscopy of a solid-state artificial atom,” Nature 455, 51–58 (2008).
  • S.O. Valenzuela, W.D. Oliver, D.M. Berns, K.K. Berggren, L.S. Levitov, and T.P. Orlando, “Microwave-induced cooling of a superconducting qubit,” Science 314, 1589 (2006).
  • W.D. Oliver, Y. Yu, J.C. Lee, K.K. Berggren, L.S. Levitov, and T.P. Orlando, “Mach-Zehnder interferometry in a strongly driven superconducting qubit,” Science 310, 1653 (2005).
  • W.D. Oliver, J. Kim, R.C. Liu, and Y. Yamamoto, “Hanbury Brown and Twiss-type experiment with electrons,” Science 284, 299 (1999).