Seismometry of radiation-induced quasiparticle bursts in superconducting devices

We perform nanosecond-resolution multiplexed readout on six same-chip superconducting microwave resonators. This allows us to pinpoint the position of ionizing radiation impacts on the chip by measuring the differential time-of-flight of the generated phonons, inducing correlated errors in the device, thereby implementing an on-chip seismic array. We correlate the phase response of each resonator—a proxy for the absorbed energy—to the distance from the impact point to uncover a millimetric characteristic length for the phonon-mediated radiation poisoning.