Controlling the spontaneous emission of a superconducting transmon qubit
A. A. Houck, J. A. Schreier, B. R. Johnson, J. M. Chow, Jens Koch, J. M. Gambetta, D. I. Schuster, L. Frunzio, M. H. Devoret, S. M. Girvin, R. J. Schoelkopf
We present a detailed characterization of coherence in seven transmon qubits in a circuit QED architecture. We find that spontaneous emission rates are strongly influenced by far off-resonant modes of the cavity and can be understood within a semiclassical circuit model. A careful analysis of the spontaneous qubit decay into a microwave transmission-line cavity can accurately predict the qubit lifetimes over two orders of magnitude in time and more than an octave in frequency. Coherence times $T_1$ and $T_2^*$ of more than a microsecond are reproducibly demonstrated.
We propose a scheme for controlling a radio-frequency mechanical resonator at the quantum level using a superconducting qubit. The mechanical part of the circuit consists of a suspended micrometer-long beam that is embedded in the loop of a superconducting quantum interference device (SQUID) and is connected in parallel to a transmon qubit. Using realistic parameters from recent experiments with similar devices, we show that this configuration can enable a tuneable optomechanical interaction in the single-photon ultrastrong-coupling regime, where the radiation-pressure coupling strength is lar…
Controlling quasiparticle dynamics can improve the performance of superconducting devices. For example, it has been demonstrated effective in increasing lifetime and stability of superconducting qubits. Here we study how to optimize the placement of normal-metal traps in transmon-type qubits. When the trap size increases beyond a certain characteristic length, the details of the geometry and trap position, and even the number of traps, become important. We discuss for some experimentally relevant examples how to shorten the decay time of the excess quasiparticle density. Moreover, we show that…
We study the spontaneous emission of a qubit interacting with a one-dimensional waveguide through a realistic minimal-coupling interaction. We show that the diamagnetic term $A^2$ leads to an effective decoupling of a single qubit from the electromagnetic field. This effects is observable at any range of qubit-photon couplings. For this we study a setup consisting of a transmon that is suspended over a transmission line. We prove that the relative strength of the $A^2$ term is controlled with the qubit-line separation and show that, as a consequence, the spontaneous emission rate of the suspen…
We explore routing of propagating phonons in analogy with previous experiments on photons. Surface acoustic waves (SAWs) in the microwave regime are scattered by a superconducting transmon qubit. The transmon can be tuned on or off resonance with the incident SAW field using an external magnetic field or the Autler-Townes effect, and thus the reflection and transmission of the SAW field can be controlled in time. We observe 80% extinction in the transmission of the low power continuous signal and a 40 ns rise time of the router. The slow propagation speed of SAWs on solid surfaces allows for i…
Hybrid devices based on the superconducting qubits have emerged as a promising platform for controlling the quantum states of macroscopic resonators. The nonlinearity added by a qubit can be a valuable resource for such control. Here we study a hybrid system consisting of a mechanical resonator longitudinally coupled to a transmon qubit. The qubit readout can be done by coupling to a readout mode like in c-QED setup. The coupling between the mechanical resonator and transmon qubit can be implemented by modulation of the SQUID inductance. In such a tri-partite system, we analyze the steady-stat…
We present a voltage gate-based method for controlling the Majorana transmon, using a sinusoidal modulation of the induced offset charge $n_g$. Working in the transmon regime and in the instantaneous eigenstates basis, we find the time evolution under this protocol that realises tunable $X$-$Z$ rotations. We optimise the parameters of the system for different single-qubit gates in both the laboratory frame and the qubit rotating frame, obtaining qubit control errors $1-\mathcal{F}$ smaller than $\sim2\times 10^{-4}$. In addition to this, we conduct an analysis of the effects of the charge nois…
We study the dynamics of a transmon qubit that is capacitively coupled to an open multimode superconducting resonator. Our effective equations are derived by eliminating resonator degrees of freedom while encoding their effect in the Green's function of the electromagnetic background. We account for the dissipation of the resonator exactly by employing a spectral representation for the Green's function in terms of a set of non-Hermitian modes and show that it is possible to derive effective Heisenberg-Langevin equations without resorting to the rotating wave, two level or Markov approximations…
We report on controlling the spontaneous emission (SE) rate of a molybdenum disulfide (MoS$_2$) monolayer coupled with a planar photonic crystal (PPC) nanocavity. Spatially resolved photoluminescence (PL) mapping shows strong variations of emission when the MoS$_2$ monolayer is on the PPC cavity, on the PPC lattice, on the air gap, and on the unpatterned gallium phosphide substrate. Polarization dependences of the cavity-coupled MoS$_2$ emission show a more than 5 times stronger extracted PL intensity than the un-coupled emission, which indicates an underlying cavity mode Purcell enhancement o…
Persistent control of a transmon qubit is performed by a feedback protocol based on continuous heterodyne measurement of its fluorescence. By driving the qubit and cavity with microwave signals whose amplitudes depend linearly on the instantaneous values of the quadratures of the measured fluorescence field, we show that it is possible to stabilize permanently the qubit in any targeted state. Using a Josephson mixer as a phase-preserving amplifier, it was possible to reach a total measurement efficiency $η$=35%, leading to a maximum of 59% of excitation and 44% of coherence for the stabilized …
As one of the central topics in quantum optics, collective spontaneous emission such as superradiance has been realized in a variety of systems. This work proposes an innovative scheme to coherently control collective emission rates via a self-interference mechanism in a nonlinear waveguide setting. The self-interference is made possible by photon backward scattering incurred by quantum scatterers in a waveguide working as quantum switches. Whether the interference is constructive or destructive is found to depend strongly on the distance between the scatterers and the emitters. The interferen…
We study the spontaneous emission of agglomerates of two-level quantum emitters embedded in a correlated transparent metal. The characteristic emission energy corresponds to the splitting between ground and excited states of a neutral, nonmagnetic molecular impurity (F color center), while correlations are due to the existence of narrow bands in the metal. This is the case of transition metal oxides with an ABO3 Perovskite structure, such as SrVO3 and CaVO3, where oxygen vacancies are responsible for the emission of visible light, while the correlated metallic nature arises from the partial fi…
We develop a rigorous, field-theoretical approach to the study of spontaneous emission in inertial and dissipative nematic liquid crystals, disclosing an alternative application of the massive Stueckelberg gauge theory to describe critical phenomena in these systems. This approach allows one not only to unveil the role of phase transitions in the spontaneous emission in liquid crystals but also to make quantitative predictions for quantum emission in realistic nematics of current scientific and technological interest in the field of metamaterials. Specifically, we predict that one can switch o…
Implementations of solid state quantum optics provide us with devices where qubits are placed at fixed positions in photonic or plasmonic one dimensional waveguides. We show that solely by controlling the position of the qubits and with the help of a coherent driving, collective spontaneous decay may be engineered to yield an entangled mesoscopic steady-state. Our scheme relies on the realization of pure superradiant Dicke models by a destructive interference that cancels dipole-dipole interactions in one-dimension.
In miniaturising electrical devices down to nanoscales, heat transfer has turned into a serious obstacle but also potential resource for future developments, both for conventional and quantum computing architectures. Controlling heat transport in superconducting circuits has thus received increasing attention in engineering microwave environments for circuit quantum electrodynamics (cQED) and circuit quantum thermodynamics experiments (cQTD). While theoretical proposals for cQTD devices are numerous, the experimental situation is much less advanced. There exist only relatively few experimental…
In this PhD thesis, we will present the theoretical and experimental work that led to the realization of a radio-frequency circuit quantum electrodynamics system (RFcQED). In chapter 2, we provide a detailed derivation of the Hamiltonian of circuit QED formulated in the context of the Rabi model, and extract expressions for the cross-Kerr interaction. The resulting requirements for the coupling rate in RFcQED are discussed, one of them being the need to dramatically increase the coupling rate compared to typical circuit QED device. In chapter 3 we cover two experimental approaches to increasin…
Massive mechanical resonators operating at the quantum scale can enable a large variety of applications in quantum technologies, as well as fundamental tests of quantum theory. Of crucial importance in that direction, is both their integrability into state-of-the-art quantum platforms as well as the ability to prepare them in generic quantum states using well-controlled high-fidelity operations. Here, we propose a scheme for controlling a radio-frequency mechanical resonator at the quantum scale using two superconducting transmon qubits that can be integrated on the same chip. Specifically, we…
We investigate an acoustical analog of circuit quantum electrodynamics that facilitates compact high-Q (${>}20,000$) microwave-frequency cavities with dense spectra. We fabricate and characterize a device that comprises a flux tunable transmon coupled to a $300\,\mathrm{μm}$ long surface acoustic wave resonator. For some modes, the qubit-cavity coupling reaches $6.5\,\mathrm{MHz}$, exceeding the cavity loss rate ($200\,\mathrm{kHz}$), qubit linewidth ($1.1\,\mathrm{MHz}$), and the cavity free spectral range ($4.8\,\mathrm{MHz}$), placing the device in both the strong coupling and strong multim…
We present a technique for manipulating the nuclear spins and the emission polarization from a single optically active quantum dot. When the quantum dot is tunnel coupled to a Fermi sea, we have discovered a natural cycle in which an electron spin is repeatedly created with resonant optical excitation. The spontaneous emission polarization and the nuclear spin polarization exhibit a bistability. For a sigma(+) pump, the emission switches from sigma(+) to sigma(-) at a particular detuning of the laser. Simultaneously, the nuclear spin polarization switches from positive to negative. Away from t…
The morphology and the microscopic internal dynamics of a bidimensional gel formed by spontaneous aggregation of gold nanoparticles confined at the water surface are investigated by a suite of techniques, including grazing-incidence x-ray photon correlation spectroscopy (GI-XPCS). The range of concentrations studied spans across the percolation transition for the formation of the gel. The dynamical features observed by GI-XPCS are interpreted in view of the results of microscopical imaging; an intrinsic link between the mechanical modulus and internal dynamics is demonstrated for all the conce…
