Phase qubits fabricated with trilayer junctions

We have developed a novel Josephson junction geometry with minimal volume of lossy isolation dielectric, being suitable for higher quality trilayer junctions implemented in qubits. The junctions are based on in-situ deposited trilayers with thermal tunnel oxide, have micron-sized areas and a low subgap current. In qubit spectroscopy only a few avoided level crossings are observed, and the measured relaxation time of $T_1\approx 400\mathrm{n}\mathrm{s}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{c}$ is in good agreement with the usual phase qubit decay time, indicating low loss due to the additional isolation dielectric.