QICKoDeS

A QCoDeS driver for QICK. Usable but still under active development. Pull requests are welcome!

Supports Python 3.11+

Development goals

• This should be a thin wrapper that directly exposes all features of QICK.
• Pulses ("instructions") and pulse sequences ("protocols") should be parameterized such that they can be fully reproduced based on the QCoDeS snapshot that gets saved with every dataset.

Status between tProc v1 and v2

Currently, tProc v1 is under maintenance mode where only bug fixes will be implemented. tProc v2 is what you should be using.

At some point, tProc v1 will be deprecated. If you find some bugs, please do report them in the issue tracker.

Installation

The authors recommend using uv inside a virtual environment.

uv venv my-environment
source my-environment/bin/activate
uv pip install qickodes

If you don't like using external packages,

python -m venv my-environment
source my-environment/bin/activate
pip install qickodes

Development

If you prefer using a more reproducible build, check locking and syncing with uv. This would install an editable installation of qickodes. Please only do this if you intend on modifying the source code and prefer to contribute upstream to this repository.

git clone https://github.com/aalto-qcd/qickodes.git
cd qickodes/
uv sync

This step would create a fresh virtual environment in qickodes/.venv/ if a virtual environment doesn't exist already. We recommend using a fresh venv for reproducibility.

Getting started

1. Start the Pyro4 nameserver (see here, use port 8888) and the QICK server (see here) on a Xilinx board.
2. Check the connection and the channel number assignment:

   from qickodes import QickInstrument
   qick_instrument = QickInstrument("ip.address.of.board")
   print(qick_instrument.soccfg)
   

3. Copy the scripts in the folder example_scripts into your folder.
4. Edit header.py:
   • Specify the IP address of the board by editing the line like

     qick_instrument = QickInstrument("ip.address.of.board")
     

   • Specify DAC/ADC channel numbers by editing the lines like

     readout_dac = qick_instrument.dacs[channel_number]
     

5. Run the example scripts:
   • meas_s21_vs_adc_trig_offset.py: Optimize the ADC trigger offset
   • meas_resonator.py: Measure S21 vs frequency
   • meas_punchout.py: Measure S21 vs frequency and amplitude
   • meas_pulse_probe_2d.py: Pulse probe spectroscopy of a qubit dispersively coupled to a resonator
   • meas_pi_pulse_gain_sweep.py: Optimize the amplitude of a pi pulse (play 10 pi pulses and readout)
   • meas_resonator_vs_qubit_state.py: Measure resonator spectra with the qubit in the ground and excited states
   • meas_t1.py: Measure the T1 of the qubit

Citing

QICKoDeS is the work of Yoshiki Sunada, Ashish Panigrahi, Jonatan Albanese and Mikko Möttönen.

If you use QICKoDeS in your research, please cite it via its DOI:

Sunada, Y., Panigrahi, A., & Albanese, J., & Möttönen, M. QICKoDeS: A QCoDeS driver for QICK. Zenodo: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.21066164

BibTeX entry:

@software{qickodes,
author = {Sunada, Yoshiki and Panigrahi, Ashish and Albanese, Jonatan and Möttönen, Mikko},
title = {{QICKoDeS}: A {QCoDeS} driver for {QICK}},
doi = {10.5281/zenodo.21066164},
title = {{qickodes}},
url = {https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.21066164},
year = {2026},
}