NMR-like control of a quantum bit superconducting circuit

Different nanofabricated superconducting circuits based on Josephson junctions have already achieved a degree of quantum coherence sufficient to demonstrate coherent superpositions of their quantum states. These circuits are considered for implementing quantum bits, which are the building blocks for the recently proposed quantum computer designs. We report experiments in which the state of a quantum bit circuit, the quantronium, is efficiently manipulated using methods inspired from Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR).