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arXiv:1210.6276 · Physical Review Letters

Nonclassical Photon Pair Production in a Voltage-Biased Josephson Junction

Juha Leppäkangas, Göran Johansson, Michael Marthaler, M. Fogelström

Published Jun 28, 2013• 55 citations
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Abstract

We investigate electromagnetic radiation emitted by a small voltage-biased Josephson junction connected to a superconducting transmission line. At frequencies below the well-known emission peak at the Josephson frequency (2eV/h), extra radiation is triggered by quantum fluctuations in the transmission line. For weak tunneling couplings and typical Ohmic transmission lines, the corresponding photon-flux spectrum is symmetric around half the Josephson frequency, indicating that the photons are predominately created in pairs. By establishing an input-output formalism for the microwave field in the transmission line, we give further evidence for this nonclassical photon pair production, demonstrating that it violates the classical Cauchy-Schwarz inequality for two-mode flux cross correlations. In connection to recent experiments, we also consider a stepped transmission line, where resonances increase the signal-to-noise ratio.

DOI
10.1103/physrevlett.110.267004

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We study microwave radiation emitted by a small voltage-biased Josephson junction connected to a superconducting transmission line. An input-output formalism for the radiation field is established, using a perturbation expansion in the junction's critical current. Using output field operators solved up to the second order, we estimate the spectral density and the second-order coherence of the emitted field. For typical transmission line impedances and at frequencies below the main emission peak at the Josephson frequency, radiation occurs predominantly due to two-photon emission. This emission is characterized by a high degree of photon bunching if detected symmetrically around half of the Josephson frequency. Strong phase fluctuations in the transmission line make related nonclassical phase-dependent amplitude correlations short lived, and there is no steady-state two-mode squeezing. However, the radiation is shown to violate the classical Cauchy-Schwarz inequality of intensity cross-correlations, demonstrating the nonclassicality of the photon pair production in this region.
We study microwave radiation emitted by a small voltage-biased Josephson junction connected to a superconducting transmission line. An input-output formalism for the radiation field is established, using a perturbation expansion in the junction's critical current. Using output field operators solved up to the second order, we estimate the spectral density and the second-order coherence of the emitted field. For typical transmission line impedances and at frequencies below the main emission peak at the Josephson frequency, radiation occurs predominantly due to two-photon emission. This emission is characterized by a high degree of photon bunching if detected symmetrically around half of the Josephson frequency. Strong phase fluctuations in the transmission line make related nonclassical phase-dependent amplitude correlations short lived, and there is no steady-state two-mode squeezing. However, the radiation is shown to violate the classical Cauchy-Schwarz inequality of intensity cross-correlations, demonstrating the nonclassicality of the photon pair production in this region.
We study a voltage-biased Josephson junction coupled to two resonators of incommensurate frequencies. Using a density matrix approach to analyze the cavity fields and an input-output description to analyze the emitted photonic fluxes and their correlation functions, we have shown, both for infinite- and finite-bandwidth detectors, that the emitted radiation is nonclassical in the sense that the correlators violate Cauchy-Schwarz inequalities. We have also studied the time dependence of the photonic correlations and showed that their linewidth becomes narrower with the increase of the emission rate approaching from below the threshold limit.
generates photons in the electromagnetic modes. We coupled a Josephson junction to two resonators at frequencies 1 2; when voltage-biased at 2eV = h 1 + h 2, Cooper pairs can tunnel only if two photons, one at each frequency, are simultaneously emitted. We measured the cross-correlations between the emission rates and showed that a Cauchy-Schwarz inequality is violated. This result, in agreement with theoretical prediction made by Leppakangas and coworkers 1 , reveals the amplitude two-mode squeezing. Our setup is a easy way to produce non-classical microwave radiation from a battery. We believe that this source is a good candidate for producing pairs of entangled photons with high rate (few hundreds of MHz).
Using a perturbation expansion to the fourth order in a junction critical current, the authors study the generation of nonclassical microwave radiation by inelastic Cooper pair tunneling in a small voltage-biased Josephson junction connected to a superconducting transmission line. The second order in the tunneling current only allows consideration of independent events. Pushing the calculation to the fourth order allows capture of the temporal correlations in the charge transport and their connection to the ones in the emitted electromagnetic radiation.
We analyze the quantum dynamics of two electromagnetic oscillators coupled in series to a voltage-biased Josephson junction. When the applied voltage leads to a Josephson frequency across the junction which matches the sum of the two mode frequencies, tunneling Cooper pairs excite photons in both modes simultaneously leading to far-from-equilibrium states. These states display highly nonclassical features including strong antibunching, violation of Cauchy-Schwartz inequalities, and number squeezing. We obtain approximate analytic results for both the regimes of low and high photon occupancies which are supported by a full numerical treatment. The impact of asymmetries between the two modes is explored, revealing a pronounced enhancement of number squeezing when the modes are damped at different rates.