Emanuele Albertinale, Léo Balembois, Eric Billaud, Vishal Ranjan, Daniel Flanigan, Thomas Schenkel, Daniel Estève, Denis Vion, Patrice Bertet, Emmanuel Flurin
Quantum emitters respond to resonant illumination by radiating electromagnetic fields. A component of these fields is phase-coherent with the driving tone, while another one is incoherent, consisting of spontaneously emitted photons and forming the fluorescence signal. Atoms and molecules are routinely detected by their fluorescence at optical frequencies, with important applications in quantum technology and microscopy. Spins, on the other hand, are usually detected by {their coherent response} at radio- or microwave frequencies, either in continuous-wave or pulsed magnetic resonance. Indeed, fluorescence detection of spins is hampered {by their low spontaneous emission rate} and by the lack of single-photon detectors in this frequency range. Here, using superconducting quantum devices, we demonstrate the detection of a small ensemble of donor spins in silicon by their fluorescence at microwave frequency and millikelvin temperatures. We enhance the spin radiative decay rate by coupling them to a high-quality-factor and small-mode-volume superconducting resonator, and we connect the device output to a newly-developed microwave single-photon counter based on a superconducting qubit. We discuss the potential of fluorescence detection as a novel method for magnetic resonance spectroscopy of small numbers of spins.
Single photon detection is a key resource for sensing at the quantum limit and the enabling technology for measurement based quantum computing. Photon detection at optical frequencies relies on irreversible photo-assisted ionization of various natural materials. However, microwave photons have energies 5 orders of magnitude lower than optical photons, and are therefore ineffective at triggering measurable phenomena at macroscopic scales. Here, we report the observation of a new type of interaction between a single two level system (qubit) and a microwave resonator. These two quantum systems do…
Single photon detectors are fundamental tools of investigation in quantum optics and play a central role in measurement theory and quantum informatics. Photodetectors based on different technologies exist at optical frequencies and much effort is currently being spent on pushing their efficiencies to meet the demands coming from the quantum computing and quantum communication proposals. In the microwave regime however, a single photon detector has remained elusive although several theoretical proposals have been put forth. In this article, we review these recent proposals, especially focusing …
Superconductor-semiconductor hybrid devices are at the heart of several proposed approaches to quantum information processing, but their basic properties remain to be understood. We embed a two-dimensional Al-InAs hybrid system in a resonant microwave circuit, probing the breakdown of superconductivity due to an applied magnetic field. We find a strong fingerprint from the two-component nature of the hybrid system, and quantitatively compare with a theory that includes the contribution of intraband $p \pm i p$ pairing in the InAs, as well as the emergence of Bogoliubov-Fermi surfaces due to ma…
The interaction between propagating microwave fields and Cooper-pair tunneling across a DC voltage-biased Josephson junction can be highly nonlinear. We show theoretically that this nonlinearity can be used to convert an incoming single microwave photon into an outgoing $n$-photon Fock state in a different mode. In this process, the electrostatic energy released in a Cooper-pair tunneling event is transferred to the outgoing Fock state, providing energy gain. The created multi-photon Fock state is frequency entangled and highly bunched. The conversion can be made reflectionless (impedance-matc…
We describe a microwave photon counter based on the current-biased Josephson junction. The junction is tuned to absorb single microwave photons from the incident field, after which it tunnels into a classically observable voltage state. Using two such detectors, we have performed a microwave version of the Hanbury Brown and Twiss experiment at 4 GHz and demonstrated a clear signature of photon bunching for a thermal source. The design is readily scalable to tens of parallelized junctions, a configuration that would allow number-resolved counting of microwave photons.
Topology is an important degree of freedom in characterizing electronic systems. Recently, it also brings new theoretical frontiers and many potential applications in photonics. However, the verification of the topological nature is highly nontrivial in photonic systems as there is no direct analog of quantized Hall conductance for bosonic photons. Here we propose a scheme of investigating topological photonics in superconducting quantum circuits by a simple parametric coupling method, the flexibility of which can lead to the effective \textit{in situ} tunable artificial gauge field for photon…
Detecting an itinerant microwave photon with high efficiency is an outstanding problem in microwave photonics and its applications. We present a scheme to detect an itinerant microwave photon in a transmission line via the nonlinearity provided by a transmon in a driven microwave resonator. With a single transmon we achieve 84% distinguishability between zero and one microwave photons and 90% distinguishability with two cascaded transmons by performing continuous measurements on the output field of the resonator. We also show how the measurement diminishes coherence in the photon number basis …
We describe an approach to the high-fidelity measurement of a superconducting qubit using an on-chip microwave photon counter. The protocol relies on the transient response of a dispersively coupled measurement resonator to map the state of the qubit to "bright" and "dark" cavity pointer states that are characterized by a large differential photon occupation. Following this mapping, we photodetect the resonator using the Josephson Photomultipler (JPM), which transitions between classically distinguishable flux states when cavity photon occupation exceeds a certain threshold. Our technique prov…
Fast, high-fidelity measurement is a key ingredient for quantum error correction. Conventional approaches to the measurement of superconducting qubits, involving linear amplification of a microwave probe tone followed by heterodyne detection at room temperature, do not scale well to large system sizes. Here we introduce an alternative approach to measurement based on a microwave photon counter. We demonstrate raw single-shot measurement fidelity of 92%. Moreover, we exploit the intrinsic damping of the counter to extract the energy released by the measurement process, allowing repeated high-fi…
During the theoretical investigation of the ultimate sensitivity of gravitational wave detectors through the 1970's and '80's, it was debated whether quantum fluctuations of the light field used for detection, also known as photon shot noise, would ultimately produce a force noise which would disturb the detector and limit the sensitivity. Carlton Caves famously answered this question with "They do." With this understanding came ideas how to avoid this limitation by giving up complete knowledge of the detector's motion. In these back-action evading (BAE) or quantum non-demolition (QND) schemes…
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…
Using an analytically solvable model, we show that a qubit array-based detector allows to achieve the fundamental Heisenberg limit in detecting single photons. In case of superconducting qubits, this opens new opportunities for quantum sensing and communications in the important microwave range.
Single photon detection is a requisite technique in quantum-optics experiments in both the optical and the microwave domains. However, the energy of microwave quanta are four to five orders of magnitude less than their optical counterpart, making the efficient detection of single microwave photons extremely challenging. Here, we demonstrate the detection of a single microwave photon propagating through a waveguide. The detector is implemented with an "impedance-matched" artificial $Λ$ system comprising the dressed states of a driven superconducting qubit coupled to a microwave resonator. We at…
Quantum optical photodetection has occupied a central role in understanding radiation-matter interactions. It has also contributed to the development of atomic physics and quantum optics, including applications to metrology, spectroscopy, and quantum information processing. The quantum microwave regime, originally explored using cavities and atoms, is seeing a novel boost with the generation of nonclassical propagating fields in circuit quantum electrodynamics (QED). This promising field, involving potential developments in quantum information with microwave photons, suffers from the absence o…
Quantum illumination (QI) is a quantum sensing protocol mainly for target detection which uses entangled signal-idler photon pairs to enhance the detection efficiency of low-reflectivity objects immersed in thermal noisy environments. Especially, due to the naturally occurring background radiation, the photon emitted toward potential targets more appropriately lies in the microwave region. Here, we propose a hybrid quantum source based on cavity magnonics for microwave QI, where the medium that bridges the optical and the microwave modes is magnon, the quanta of spin wave. Within experimentall…
The interaction of photons and coherent quantum systems can be employed to detect electromagnetic radiation with remarkable sensitivity. We introduce a quantum radiometer based on the photon-induced-dephasing process of a superconducting qubit for sensing microwave radiation at the sub-unit-photon level. Using this radiometer, we demonstrated the radiative cooling of a 1-K microwave resonator and measured its mode temperature with an uncertainty ~0.01 K. We have thus developed a precise tool for studying the thermodynamics of quantum microwave circuits, which provides new solutions for calibra…
High-fidelity, efficient quantum nondemolition readout of quantum bits is integral to the goal of quantum computation. As superconducting circuits approach the requirements of scalable, universal fault tolerance, qubit readout must also meet the demand of simplicity to scale with growing system size. Here we propose a fast, high-fidelity, scalable measurement scheme based on the state-selective ring-up of a cavity followed by photodetection with the recently introduced Josephson photomultiplier (JPM), a current-biased Josephson junction. This scheme maps qubit state information to the binary d…
Measuring the quantum dynamics of a mechanical system, when few phonons are involved, remains a challenge. We show that a superconducting microwave resonator linearly coupled to the mechanical mode constitutes a very powerful probe for this scope. This new coupling can be much stronger than the usual radiation pressure interaction by adjusting a gate voltage. We focus on the detection of phonon blockade, showing that it can be observed by measuring the statistics of the light in the cavity. The underlying reason is the formation of an entangled state between the two resonators. Our scheme real…
At optical frequencies the radiation produced by a source, such as a laser, a black body or a single photon source, is frequently characterized by analyzing the temporal correlations of emitted photons using single photon counters. At microwave frequencies, however, there are no efficient single photon counters yet. Instead, well developed linear amplifiers allow for efficient measurement of the amplitude of an electromagnetic field. Here, we demonstrate how the properties of a microwave single photon source can be characterized using correlation measurements of the emitted radiation with such…
High efficiency single photon detection is an interesting problem for many areas of physics, including low temperature measurement, quantum information science and particle physics. For optical photons, there are many examples of devices capable of detecting single photons with high efficiency. However reliable single photon detection of microwaves is very difficult, principally due to their low energy. In this paper we present the theory of a cascade amplifier operating in the microwave regime that has an optimal quantum efficiency of 93%. The device uses a microwave photon to trigger the sti…
We propose a method to couple metastable flux-based qubits to superconductive resonators based on a quantum-optical Raman excitation scheme that allows for the deterministic generation of stationary and propagating microwave Fock states and other weak quantum fields. Moreover, we introduce a suitable microwave quantum homodyne technique, with no optical counterpart, that enables the measurement of relevant field observables, even in the presence of noisy amplification devices.
High fidelity microwave photon counting is an important tool for various areas from background radiation analysis in astronomy to the implementation of circuit QED architectures for the realization of a scalable quantum information processor. In this work we describe a microwave photon counter coupled to a semi-infinite transmission line. We employ input-output theory to examine a continuously driven transmission line as well as traveling photon wave packets. Using analytic and numerical methods, we calculate the conditions on the system parameters necessary to optimize measurement and achieve…
Detecting traveling photons is an essential primitive for many quantum information processing tasks. We introduce a single-photon detector design operating in the microwave domain, based on a weakly nonlinear metamaterial where the nonlinearity is provided by a large number of Josephson junctions. The combination of weak nonlinearity and large spatial extent circumvents well-known obstacles limiting approaches based on a localized Kerr medium. Using numerical many-body simulations we show that the single-photon detection fidelity increases with the length of the metamaterial to approach one at…
The accuracy of microwave measurements is not only critical for applications in telecommunication and radar, but also for future quantum computers. Qubit technologies such as superconducting qubits or spin qubits require detecting minuscule signals, typically achieved by reflecting a microwave tone off a resonator that is coupled to the qubit. Noise from cabling and amplification, e.g. from temperature variations, can be detrimental to readout fidelity. We present an approach to detect phase and amplitude changes of a device under test based on the differential measurement of microwave tones g…
In the past 20 years, impressive progress has been made both experimentally and theoretically in superconducting quantum circuits, which provide a platform for manipulating microwave photons. This emerging field of superconducting quantum microwave circuits has been driven by many new interesting phenomena in microwave photonics and quantum information processing. For instance, the interaction between superconducting quantum circuits and single microwave photons can reach the regimes of strong, ultra-strong, and even deep-strong coupling. Many higher-order effects, unusual and less familiar in…
We demonstrate a method for preparing and detecting all eigenstates of a three-level microwave dressed system with a single trapped ion. The method significantly reduces the experimental complexity of gate operations with dressed-state qubits, as well as allowing all three of the dressed-states to be prepared and detected, thereby providing access to a qutrit that is well protected from magnetic field noise. In addition, we demonstrate individual addressing of the clock transitions in two ions using a strong static magnetic field gradient, showing that our method can be used to prepare and det…
A strong photon-photon nonlinear interaction is a necessary condition for photon blockade. Moreover, this nonlinearity can also result a bistable behavior in the cavity field. We analyze the relation between detecting field and photon blockade in a superconducting circuit QED system, and show that photon blockade cannot occur when the detecting field is in the bistable regime. This photon blockade is the microwave-photonics analog of the Coulomb blockade. We further demonstrate that the photon transmission through such system can be controlled (from photon blockade to transparency) by the dete…
Higher-order transitions can occur in the ultrastrong-coupling regime of circuit QED through virtual processes governed by the counter-rotating interactions. We propose a feasible way to probe higher-order transitions through the scattering of propagating microwave photons incident on the hybrid qubit-cavity system. The lineshapes in the scattering spectra can indicate the coherent interaction between the qubits and the cavity, and the higher-order transitions can be identified in the population spectra. We further find that if the coupling strengths between the two qubits and the cavity are t…
A quantum network that distributes and processes entanglement would enable powerful new computers and sensors. Optical photons with a frequency of a few hundred terahertz are perhaps the only way to distribute quantum information over long distances. Superconducting qubits on the other hand, which are one of the most promising approaches for realizing large-scale quantum machines, operate naturally on microwave photons that have roughly $40,000$ times less energy. To network these quantum machines across appreciable distances, we must bridge this frequency gap and learn how to generate entangl…
Probing Quantum Anomalous Hall Transport Under Microwave Irradiation Using a Topological Circulator
Institute for Quantum Computing and Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Waterloo（滑铁卢大学量子计算研究所与物理天文学系）；Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory（劳伦斯利弗莫尔国家实验室）；Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Minnesota（明尼苏达大学电气与计算机工程系）；Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of California, Los Angeles（加州大学洛杉矶分校电气与计算机工程系）
A comprehensive study of three-photon electromagnetically-induced transparency (EIT) and absorption (EIA) on the rubidium cascade $5S_{1/2} \rightarrow 5P_{3/2}$ (laser wavelength 780~nm), $5P_{3/2} \rightarrow 5D_{5/2}$ (776~nm), and $5D_{5/2}\rightarrow 28F_{7/2}$ (1260~nm) is performed. The 780-nm probe and 776-nm dressing beams are counter-aligned through a Rb room-temperature vapor cell, and the 1260-nm coupler beam is co- or counter-aligned with the probe beam. Several cases of EIT and EIA, measured over a range of detunings of the 776-nm beam, are studied. The observed phenomena are mod…
Direct detection of gravitational waves is opening a new window onto our universe. Here, we study the sensitivity to continuous-wave strain fields of a kg-scale optomechanical system formed by the acoustic motion of superfluid helium-4 parametrically coupled to a superconducting microwave cavity. This narrowband detection scheme can operate at very high $Q$-factors, while the resonant frequency is tunable through pressurization of the helium in the 0.1-1.5 kHz range. The detector can therefore be tuned to a variety of astrophysical sources and can remain sensitive to a particular source over a…
