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arXiv:1012.3577 · Physical Review B

Lasing, trapping states, and multistability in a circuit quantum electrodynamical analog of a single-atom injection maser

Michael Marthaler, Juha Leppäkangas, Jared H. Cole

Published May 24, 2011• 34 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

We study a superconducting single-electron transistor (SSET) which is coupled to a $\mathit{LC}$ oscillator via the phase difference across one of the Josephson junctions. This leads to a strongly anharmonic coupling between the SSET and the oscillator. The coupling can oscillate with the number of photons, which makes this system very similar to the single-atom injection maser. However, the advantage of a design based on superconducting circuits is the strong coupling and existence of standard methods to measure the radiation field in the oscillator. This makes it possible to study many effects that have been predicted for the single-atom injection maser in a circuit quantum electrodynamics setup.

DOI
10.1103/physrevb.83.180505

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We study a superconducting single-electron transistor (SSET) which is coupled to a LC\mathit{LC}LC oscillator via the phase difference across one of the Josephson junctions. This leads to a strongly anharmonic coupling between the SSET and the oscillator. The coupling can oscillate with the number of photons, which makes this system very similar to the single-atom injection maser. However, the advantage of a design based on superconducting circuits is the strong coupling and existence of standard methods to measure the radiation field in the oscillator. This makes it possible to study many effects that have been predicted for the single-atom injection maser in a circuit quantum electrodynamics setup.
A superconducting single-electron transistor (SSET) coupled to an anharmonic oscillator, e.g., a Josephson junction-L-C circuit, can drive the latter to a nonequilibrium photon-number distribution. By biasing the SSET at the Josephson quasiparticle cycle, cooling of the oscillator as well as a laserlike enhancement of the photon number can be achieved. Here, we show that the cutoff in the quasiparticle tunneling rate due to the superconducting gap, in combination with the anharmonicity of the oscillator, may create strongly squeezed photon-number distributions. For low dissipation in the oscillator, nearly pure Fock states can be produced.
We investigate the dynamical instabilities of a resonator coupled to a superconducting single-electron transistor (SSET) tuned to the Josephson quasiparticle (JQP) resonance. Starting from the quantum master equation of the system, we use a standard semiclassical approximation to derive a closed set of mean field equations which describe the average dynamics of the resonator and SSET charge. Using amplitude and phase coordinates for the resonator and assuming that the amplitude changes much more slowly than the phase, we explore the instabilities which arise in the resonator dynamics as a function of coupling to the SSET, detuning from the JQP resonance and the resonator frequency. We find that the locations (in parameter space) and sizes of the limit cycle states predicted by the mean field equations agree well with numerical solutions of the full master equation for sufficiently weak SSET–resonator coupling. The mean field equations also give a good qualitative description of the set of dynamical transitions in the resonator state that occur as the coupling is progressively increased.
We show how a pair of superconducting qubits coupled to a microwave cavity mode can be used to engineer a single-atom laser that emits light into a nonclassical state. Our scheme relies on the dressing of the qubit-field coupling by periodic modulations of the qubit energy. In the dressed basis, the radiative decay of the first qubit becomes an effective incoherent pumping mechanism that injects energy into the system, hence turning dissipation to our advantage. A second, auxiliary qubit is used to shape the decay within the cavity, in such a way that lasing occurs in a squeezed basis of the cavity mode. We characterize the system both by mean-field theory and exact calculations. Our work may find applications in the generation of squeezing and entanglement in circuit QED, as well as in the study of dissipative few- and many-body phase transitions.
We analyze the current and zero-frequency current noise properties of a superconducting single-electron transistor (SSET) coupled to a resonator, focusing on the regime where the SSET is operated in the vicinity of the Josephson quasiparticle resonance. We consider a range of coupling strengths and resonator frequencies to reflect the fact that in practice the system can be tuned to quite a high degree with the resonator formed either by a nanomechanical oscillator or a superconducting stripline fabricated in close proximity to the SSET. For very weak couplings the SSET acts on the resonator like an effective thermal bath. In this regime the current characteristics of the SSET are only weakly modified by the resonator. Using a mean-field approach, we show that the current noise is nevertheless very sensitive to the correlations between the resonator and the SSET charge. For stronger couplings, the SSET can drive the resonator into limit-cycle states where self-sustained oscillation occurs and we find that regions of well-defined bistability exist. Dynamical transitions into and out of the limit-cycle state are marked by strong fluctuations in the resonator energy, but these fluctuations are suppressed within the limit-cycle state. We find that the current noise of the SSET is strongly influenced by the fluctuations in the resonator energy and hence should provide a useful indicator of the resonator's dynamics.