Controllable coupling of superconducting flux qubits

We have realized controllable coupling between two three-junction flux qubits by inserting an additional coupler loop between them, containing three Josephson junctions. Two of these are shared with the qubit loops, providing strong qubit--coupler interaction. The third junction gives the coupler a nontrivial current--flux relation; its derivative (i.e., the susceptibility) determines the coupling strength J, which thus is tunable in situ via the coupler's flux bias. In the qubit regime, J was varied from ~45 (antiferromagnetic) to ~ -55 mK (ferromagnetic); in particular, J vanishes for an intermediate coupler bias. Measurements on a second sample illuminate the relation between two-qubit tunable coupling and three-qubit behavior.