We designed a loop-gap microwave resonator for applications of spin-based hybrid quantum systems, and tested it with impurity spins in diamond. Strong coupling with ensembles of nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centers and substitutional nitrogen (P1) centers was observed. These results show that loop-gap resonators are viable in the prospect of spin-based hybrid quantum systems, especially for an ensemble quantum memory or a quantum transducer.
We propose a scheme able to entangle at the steady state a nanomechanical resonator with a microwave cavity mode of a driven superconducting coplanar waveguide. The nanomechanical resonator is capacitively coupled with the central conductor of the waveguide and stationary entanglement is achievable up to temperatures of tens of milliKelvin.
We consider the coupling of a single mode microwave resonator to a tunnel junction whose contacts are at thermal equilibrium. We derive the quantum master equation describing the evolution of the resonator field in the strong coupling regime, where the characteristic impedance of the resonator is larger than the quantum of resistance. We first study the case of a normal-insulator-normal junction and show that a dc driven single photon source can be obtained. We then consider the case of a superconductor-insulator-normal and superconductor-insulator-superconductor junction. There, we show that …
We propose a method for detecting the presence of a single spin in a crystal by coupling it to a high-quality factor superconducting planar resonator. By confining the microwave field in a constriction of nanometric dimensions, the coupling constant can be as high as $5-10$\,kHz. This coupling affects the amplitude of the field emitted by the resonator, and the integrated homodyne signal allows detection of a single spin with unit signal-to-noise ratio within few milliseconds. We further show that a stochastic master equation approach and a Bayesian analysis of the full time dependent homodyne…
We report the observation of strong coupling between the exchange-coupled spins in gallium-doped yttrium iron garnet and a superconducting coplanar microwave resonator made from Nb. The measured coupling rate of 450 MHz is proportional to the square-root of the number of exchange-coupled spins and well exceeds the loss rate of 50 MHz of the spin system. This demonstrates that exchange coupled systems are suitable for cavity quantum electrodynamics experiments, while allowing high integration densities due to their extraordinary high spin densities. Our results furthermore show, that experiment…
We measure photon-occupancy in a thin-film superconducting lumped element resonator coupled to a transmon qubit at 20$\,$mK and find a nonlinear dependence on the applied microwave power. The transmon-resonator system was operated in the strong dispersive regime, where the ac Stark shift ($2χ$) due to a single microwave photon present in the resonator was larger than the linewidth ($Γ$) of the qubit transition. When the resonator was coherently driven at $5.474325\,$GHz, the transition spectrum of the transmon at $4.982\,$GHz revealed well-resolved peaks, each corresponding to an individual ph…
Microwave-frequency superconducting resonators are ideally suited to perform dispersive qubit readout, to mediate two-qubit gates, and to shuttle states between distant quantum systems. A prerequisite for these applications is a strong qubit-resonator coupling. Strong coupling between an electron-spin qubit and a microwave resonator can be achieved by correlating spin- and orbital degrees of freedom. This correlation can be achieved through the Zeeman coupling of a single electron in a double quantum dot to a spatially inhomogeneous magnetic field generated by a nearby nanomagnet. In this pape…
Detection of single, itinerant microwave photons is an important functionality for emerging quantum technology applications as well as of fundamental interest in quantum thermodynamics experiments on heat transport. In a recent experiment [W. Khan et al., Nat. Commun. 12, 5130 (2021)], it was demonstrated that a double quantum dot (DQD) coupled to a microwave resonator can act as an efficient and continuous photodetector by converting an incoming stream of photons to an electrical photocurrent. In the experiment, average photon and electron flows were analyzed. Here we theoretically investigat…
We show how the coherent oscillations of a nanomechanical resonator can be entangled with a microwave cavity in the form of a superconducting coplanar resonator. Dissipation is included and realistic values for experimental parameters are estimated.
Quantum coherence in solid-state systems has been demonstrated in superconducting circuits and in semiconductor quantum dots. This has paved the way to investigate solid-state systems for quantum information processing with the potential benefit of scalability compared to other systems based on atoms, ions and photons. Coherent coupling of superconducting circuits to microwave photons, circuit quantum electrodynamics (QED), has opened up new research directions and enabled long distance coupling of qubits. Here we demonstrate how the electromagnetic field of a superconducting microwave resonat…
The germanium (Ge) hut wire system has strong spin-orbit coupling, a long coherence time due to a very large heavy-light hole splitting, and the advantage of site-controlled large-scale hut wire positioning. These properties make the Ge hut wire a promising candidate for the realization of strong coupling of spin to superconducting resonators and scalability for multiple qubit coupling. We have coupled a reflection line resonator to a hole double quantum dot (DQD) formed in Ge hut wire. The amplitude and phase responses of the microwave resonator revealed that the charge stability diagrams of …
We present an experimental demonstration as well as a theoretical model of an integrated circuit designed for the manipulation of a microwave field down to the single-photon level. The device is made of a superconducting resonator coupled to a transmission line via a second frequency-tunable resonator. The tunable resonator can be used as a tunable coupler between the fixed resonator and the transmission line. Moreover, the manipulation of the microwave field between the two resonators is possible. In particular, we demonstrate the swapping of the field from one resonator to the other by pulsi…
In recent years, the field of microwave optomechanics has emerged as leading platform for achieving quantum control of macroscopic mechanical objects. Implementations of microwave optomechanics to date have coupled microwave photons to mechanical resonators using a moving capacitance. While simple and effective, the capacitive scheme suffers from inherent and practical limitations on the maximum achievable coupling strength. Here, we experimentally implement a fundamentally different approach: flux-mediated optomechanical coupling. In this scheme, mechanical displacements modulate the flux in …
We present a system which allows to tune the coupling between a superconducting resonator and a transmission line. This storage resonator is addressed through a second, coupling resonator, which is frequency-tunable and controlled by a magnetic flux applied to a superconducting quantum interference device (SQUID). We experimentally demonstrate that the lifetime of the storage resonator can be tuned by more than three orders of magnitude. A field can be stored for 18 μs when the coupling resonator is tuned off resonance and it can be released in 14 ns when the coupling resonator is tuned on res…
We consider a theoretical model for a nonlinear nanomechanical resonator coupled to a superconducting microwave resonator. The nanomechanical resonator is driven parametrically at twice its resonance frequency, while the superconducting microwave resonator is driven with two tones that differ in frequency by an amount equal to the parametric driving frequency. We show that the semi-classical approximation of this system has an interesting fixed point bifurcation structure. In the semi-classical dynamics a transition from stable fixed points to limit cycles is observed as one moves from positiv…
We explain the ``Hidden symmetries'' observed in wavefunctions of deformed microwave resonators in recent experiments.We also predict that other such symmetries can be seen in microwave resonators.
We design and fabricate two types of superconducting niobium coplanar waveguide microwave resonators with different coupling capacitors on high purity Si substrates. Their microwave transmissions are measured at the temperatures of 20 mK. It is found that these two types of resonators possess significantly-different loaded quality factors; one is $5.6\times{10}^{3}$, and the other is $4.0\times{10}^{4}$. The measured data are fitted well by classical ABCD matrix approach. We found that the transmission peak deviates from the standard Lorentizian with a frequency broadening.
We propose a scheme able to generate stationary continuous variable entanglement between an optical and a microwave cavity mode by means of their common interaction with a micro-mechanical resonator. We show that when both cavities are intensely driven one can generate bipartite entanglement between any pair of the tripartite system, and that, due to entanglement sharing, optical-microwave entanglement is efficiently generated at the expense of microwave-mechanical and opto-mechanical entanglement.
Conversion of microwave radiation into the optical range has been predicted to reach unity quantum efficiency in whispering gallery resonators made from an optically nonlinear crystal and supporting microwave and optical modes simultaneously. In this work we theoretically explore and experimentally demonstrate a resonator geometry that can provide the required phase matching for such a conversion at any desired frequency in the sub-THz range. We show that such a ring-shaped resonator not only allows for the phase matching, but also maximizes the overlap of the interacting fields. As a result, …
We describe a unified quantum approach for analyzing the scattering coefficients of superconducting microwave resonators with a variety of geometries. We also generalize the method to a chain of resonators with time delays, and reveal several transport properties similar to a photonic crystal. It is shown that both the quantum and classical analyses provide consistent results, and they together reveal different decay and decoherence mechanisms in a general microwave resonator. These results form a solid basis for understanding the scattering spectrums of networks of microwave resonators, and p…
We propose a physical model to explain the phenomenon of photon depletion in superconducting microwave resonators in the dispersive regime, coupled to Josephson junction qubits, via short microwave pulses. We discuss the conditions for matching the amplitude and phase of the pulse optimally within the framework of the model, allowing for significant reductions in reset times after measurement of the qubits. We consider how to deal with pulses and transient dynamics within the input-output formalism, along with a reassessment of the underlying assumptions for a wide-band pulse.
Quantum entanglement, one of the defining features of quantum mechanics, has been demonstrated in a variety of nonlinear spin-like systems. Quantum entanglement in linear systems has proven significantly more challenging, as the intrinsic energy level degeneracy associated with linearity makes quantum control more difficult. Here we demonstrate the quantum entanglement of photon states in two independent linear microwave resonators, creating N-photon NOON states as a benchmark demonstration. We use a superconducting quantum circuit that includes Josephson qubits to control and measure the two …
We propose a low noise, triply-resonant, electro-optic (EO) scheme for quantum microwave-to-optical conversion based on coupled nanophotonics resonators integrated with a superconducting qubit. Our optical system features a split resonance - a doublet - with a tunable frequency splitting that matches the microwave resonance frequency of the superconducting qubit. This is in contrast to conventional approaches where large optical resonators with free-spectral range comparable to the qubit microwave frequency are used. In our system, EO mixing between the optical pump coupled into the low freque…
We describe a unified classical approach for analyzing the scattering coefficients of superconducting microwave resonators with a variety of geometries. To fill the gap between experiment and theory, we also consider the influences of small circuit asymmetry and the finite length of the feedlines, and describe a procedure to correct them in typical measurement results. We show that, similar to the transmission coefficient of a hanger-type resonator, the reflection coefficient of a necklace- or bridge-type resonator does also contain a reference point which can be used to characterize the elect…
Coupled superconducting transmission line resonators have applications in quantum information processing and fundamental quantum mechanics. A particular example is the realization of fast beam splitters, which however is hampered by two-mode squeezer terms. Here, we experimentally study superconducting microstrip resonators which are coupled over one third of their length. By varying the position of this coupling region we can tune the strength of the two-mode squeezer coupling from 2.4% to 12.9% of the resonance frequency of 5.44GHz. Nevertheless, the beam splitter coupling rate for maximally…
We propose to generate photon-pair blockade in a Josephson-photonics circuit that consists of a dc voltage-biased Josephson junction in series with a superconducting charge qubit and two nondegenerate microwave resonators. The two-level charge qubit is utilized to create anticorrelations of the charge transport; that is, the simultaneous Cooper pair tunneling events are inhibited. When the Josephson frequency matches the sum of resonance frequencies of the charge qubit and the two resonators, we demonstrate that the two resonators can release their energies in the form of antibunched pairs of …
We report on the design and performance of a cryogenic (300 mK) near-field scanning microwave microscope. It uses a microwave resonator as the near-field sensor, operating at a frequency of 6 GHz and microwave probing amplitudes down to 100 uV, approaching low enough photon population (N~1000) of the resonator such that coherent quantum manipulation becomes feasible. The resonator is made out of a miniaturized distributed fractal superconducting circuit that is integrated with the probing tip, micromachined to be compact enough such that it can be mounted directly on a quartz tuning-fork, and …
Rydberg helium atoms traveling in pulsed supersonic beams have been coupled to microwave fields in a superconducting coplanar waveguide (CPW) resonator. The atoms were initially prepared in the 1s55s $^3$S$_1$ Rydberg level by two-color two-photon laser excitation from the metastable 1s2s $^3$S$_1$ level. Two-photon microwave transitions between the 1s55s $^3$S$_1$ and 1s56s $^3$S$_1$ levels were then driven by the 19.556 GHz third-harmonic microwave field in a quarter-wave CPW resonator. This superconducting microwave resonator was fabricated from niobium nitride on a silicon substrate and op…
We theoretically study the transmission of a weak probe field under the influence of a strong pump field in a coupled nanomechanical resonator-superconducting microwave cavity system. Using the standard input-output theory, we find that both pulse delay (slow light effect) and advancement (fast light effect) of the probe field can appear in this coupled system provided that we choose the suitable detuning of the pump field from cavity resonance. The magnitude of the delay (advancement) can be tuned continuously by adjusting the power of the pump field. This technique demonstrates great potenti…
Qutrits (i.e., three-level quantum systems) can be used to achieve many quantum information and communication tasks due to their large Hilbert spaces. In this work, we propose a scheme to transfer an unknown quantum state between two flux qutrits coupled to two superconducting coplanar waveguide resonators. The quantum state transfer can be deterministically achieved without measurements. Because resonator photons are virtually excited during the operation time, the decoherences caused by the resonator decay and the unwanted inter-resonator crosstalk are greatly suppressed. Moreover, our appro…
We present a scalable quantum-bus-based device for generating the entanglement on microwave photons (MPs) in distant superconducting resonators (SRs). Different from the processors in previous works with some resonators coupled to a superconducting qubit (SQ), our device is composed of some 1D SRs $r_j$ which are coupled to the quantum bus (another common resonator $R$) in its different positions simply, assisted by superconducting quantum interferometer devices. By using the technique for catching and releasing a MP state in a 1D SR, it can work as an entanglement generator or a node in quant…
Quantum transducers between microwave and optical photons are essential for long-distance quantum networks based on superconducting qubits. An optically active self-assembled quantum dot molecule (QDM) is an attractive platform for the implementation of a quantum transducer because an exciton in a QDM can be efficiently coupled to both optical and microwave fields at the single-photon level. Recently, the transduction between microwave and optical photons has been demonstrated with a QDM integrated with a superconducting resonator. In this paper, we present a design of a QD-high impedance reso…
Multipartite entanglement of large numbers of physically distinct linear resonators is of both fundamental and applied interest, but there have been no feasible proposals to date for achieving it. At the same time, the Bose-Hubbard model with attractive interactions (ABH) is theoretically known to have a phase transition from the superfluid phase to a highly entangled nonlocal superposition, but observation of this phase transition has remained out of experimental reach. In this theoretical work, we jointly address these two problems by (1) proposing an experimentally accessible quantum simula…
Based on a microwave-photon quantum processor with two superconducting resonators coupled to one transmon qutrit, we construct the controlled-phase (c-phase) gate on microwave-photon-resonator qudits, by combination of the photon-number-dependent frequency-shift effect on the transmon qutrit by the first resonator and the resonant operation between the qutrit and the second resonator. This distinct feature provides us a useful way to achieve the c-phase gate on the two resonator qudits with a higher fidelity and a shorter operation time, compared with the previous proposals. The fidelity of ou…
Experiments have been performed using a spherical superconducting microwave resonator that simulates the geometric structure of the C60 fullerene molecule. The objective was to study with very high resolution the exceptional spectral properties emerging from the symmetries of the icosahedral structure of the carbon lattice. In particular, the number of zero modes has been determined to test the predictions of the Atiyah-Singer index theorem, which relates it to the topology of the curved carbon lattice. This is, to the best of our knowledge, the first experimental verification of the index the…
We study nonlinear response of a ferrimagnetic sphere resonator (FSR) strongly coupled to a microwave loop gap resonator (LGR). The measured response in the regime of weak nonlinearity allows the extraction of the FSR Kerr coefficient and its cubic damping rate. We find that there is a certain range of driving parameters in which the system exhibits instability. In that range, self-sustained modulation of the reflected power off the system is generated. The instability is attributed to absorption-induced heating of the FSR above its Curie temperature.
We have observed the unconventional photon blockade effect for microwave photons using two coupled superconducting resonators. As opposed to the conventional blockade, only weakly nonlinear resonators are required. The blockade is revealed through measurements of the second order correlation function $g^{(2)}(t)$ of the microwave field inside one of the two resonators. The lowest measured value of $g^{(2)}(0)$ is 0.4 for a resonator population of approximately $10^{-2}$ photons. The time evolution of $g^{(2)}(t)$ exhibits an oscillatory behavior, which is characteristic of the unconventional p…
We study the slowing, storing and releasing of microwave pulses in a superconducting circuits composed of two coplanar waveguide resonators and a superconducting transmon-type qubit. The quantum interference analogy to electromagnetically induced transparency is created in two coupled resonators. By tuning the resonance frequency of the transmon, we dynamically tune the effective coupling between the resonators. Via the modulation of the coupling, we show the tunable true time delay of microwave pulses at the single-photon level. We also store the microwave field in a high-Q resonator and rele…
We show that pairs of atoms optically excited to the Rydberg states can strongly interact with each other via effective long-range dipole-dipole or van der Waals interactions mediated by their non-resonant coupling to a common microwave field mode of a superconducting coplanar waveguide cavity. These cavity mediated interactions can be employed to generate single photons and to realize in a scalable configuration a universal phase gate between pairs of single photon pulses propagating or stored in atomic ensembles in the regime of electromagnetically induced transparency.
The microwave properties of a crystalline sapphire dielectric whispering gallery mode resonator have been measured at very low excitation strength (E/hf=1) and low temperatures (T = 30 mK). The measurements were sensitive enough to observe saturation due to a highly detuned electron spin resonance, which limited the loss tangent of the material to about 2e-8 measured at 13.868 and 13.259 GHz. Small power dependent frequency shifts were also measured which correspond to an added magnetic susceptibility of order 1e-9. This work shows that quantum limited microwave resonators with Q-factors > 1e8…
Superconducting circuit testing and materials loss characterization requires robust and reliable methods for the extraction of internal and coupling quality factors of microwave resonators. A common method, imposed by limitations on the device design or experimental configuration, is the single-port reflection geometry, i.e. reflection-mode. However, impedance mismatches in cryogenic systems must be accounted for through calibration of the measurement chain while it is at low temperatures. In this paper, we demonstrate a data-based, single-port calibration using commercial microwave standards …
We propose a protection scheme of a superconducting microwave resonator to realize a hybrid quantum system, where cold neutral atoms are coupled with a single microwave photon through magnetic dipole interaction at an interface inductor. The evanescent field atom trap such as a waveguide/nanofiber atom trap, brings both surface-scattered photons and absorption-induced broadband blackbody radiation which result in quasiparticles and a low quality factor at the resonator. A proposed multiband protection layer consists of pairs of two dielectric layers and a thin nanogrid conductive dielectric la…
Nitrogen-Vacancy (NV) centers in diamond are attractive tools for sensing and quantum information. Realization of this potential requires effective tools for controlling the spin degree of freedom by microwave (mw) magnetic fields. In this work we present a planar microwave resonator optimized for microwave-optical double resonance experiments on single nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centers in diamond. It consists of a piece of wide microstrip line which is symmetrically connected to two 50 $Ω$ microstrip feed lines. In the center of the resonator, an $Ω$-shaped loop focuses the current and the mw mag…
Cooling microwave resonators to near the quantum ground state, crucial for their operation in the quantum regime, is typically achieved by direct device refrigeration to a few tens of millikelvin. However, in quantum experiments that require high operation power such as microwave-to-optics quantum transduction, it is desirable to operate at higher temperatures with non-negligible environmental thermal excitations, where larger cooling power is available. In this Letter, we present a radiative cooling protocol to prepare a superconducting microwave mode near its quantum ground state in spite of…
In the circuit quantum electrodynamics architecture, both the resonance frequency and the coupling of superconducting qubits to microwave field modes can be controlled via external electric and magnetic fields to explore qubit -- photon dynamics in a wide parameter range. Here, we experimentally demonstrate and analyze a scheme for tuning the coupling between a transmon qubit and a microwave resonator using a single coherent drive tone. We treat the transmon as a three-level system with the qubit subspace defined by the ground and the second excited states. If the drive frequency matches the d…
We propose and analyze a circuit that implements a nonlinear coupling between two superconducting microwave resonators. The resonators are coupled through a superconducting quantum interference device (SQUID) that terminates one of the resonators. This produces a nonlinear interaction on the standard optomechanical form, where the quadrature of one resonator couples to the photon number of the other resonator. The circuit therefore allows for all-electrical realizations of analogs to optomechanical systems, with coupling that can be both strong and tunable. We estimate the coupling strengths t…
We propose a novel hybrid quantum gate between an atom and a microwave photon in a superconducting coplanar waveguide cavity by exploiting the strong resonant microwave coupling between adjacent Rydberg states. Using experimentally achievable parameters gate fidelities $> 0.99$ are possible on sub-$μ$s timescales for waveguide temperatures below 40 mK. This provides a mechanism for generating entanglement between two disparate quantum systems and represents an important step in the creation of a hybrid quantum interface applicable for both quantum simulation and quantum information processing.
Stark shift on a superconducting qubit in circuit quantum electrodynamics (QED) has been used to construct universal quantum entangling gates on superconducting resonators in previous works. It is a second-order coupling effect between the resonator and the qubit in the dispersive regime, which leads to a slow state-selective rotation on the qubit. Here, we present two proposals to construct the fast universal quantum gates on superconducting resonators in a microwave-photon quantum processor composed of multiple superconducting resonators coupled to a superconducting transmon qutrit, that is,…
We consider a model for an oscillatory, relativistic accelerating photodetector inside a cavity and show that the entangled photon pair production from the vacuum (Unruh effect) can be accurately described in the steady state by a non-degenerate parametric amplifier (NDPA), with the detector's accelerating center of mass serving as the parametric drive (pump). We propose an Unruh effect analogue NDPA microwave superconducting circuit scheme, where the breathing mode of the coupling capacitance between the cavity and detector provides the mechanical pump. For realizable circuit parameters, the …
We realize tunable coupling between two superconducting transmission line resonators. The coupling is mediated by a non-hysteretic rf SQUID acting as a flux-tunable mutual inductance between the resonators. From the mode distance observed in spectroscopy experiments, we derive a coupling strength ranging between -320MHz and 37 MHz. In the case where the coupling strength is about zero, the microwave power cross transmission between the two resonators can be reduced by almost four orders of magnitude compared to the case where the coupling is switched on. In addition, we observe parametric ampl…
We propose a device architecture capable of direct quantum electro-optical conversion of microwave to optical photons. The hybrid system consists of a planar superconducting microwave circuit coupled to an integrated whispering-gallery-mode microresonator made from an electro-optical material. We show that electro-optical (vacuum) coupling rates $g_0$ as large as$\sim 2π\, \mathcal{O}(10-100)$ kHz are achievable with currently available technology, due to the small mode volume of the planar microwave resonator. Operating at millikelvin temperatures, such a converter would enable high-efficienc…
