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arXiv:1707.07703 · Physical Review A

Phase locking of a semiconductor double-quantum-dot single-atom maser

Y.-Y. Liu, Thomas R. Hartke, J. Stehlik, J. R. Petta

Published Nov 8, 2017• 10 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

We experimentally study the phase stabilization of a semiconductor double-quantum-dot (DQD) single-atom maser by injection locking. A voltage-biased DQD serves as an electrically tunable microwave frequency gain medium. The statistics of the maser output field demonstrate that the maser can be phase locked to an external cavity drive, with a resulting phase noise $\mathcal{L}=\ensuremath{-}99$ dBc/Hz at a frequency offset of 1.3 MHz. The injection locking range, and the phase of the maser output relative to the injection locking input tone are in good agreement with Adler's theory. Furthermore, the electrically tunable DQD energy level structure allows us to rapidly switch the gain medium on and off, resulting in an emission spectrum that resembles a frequency comb. The free running frequency comb linewidth is $\ensuremath{\approx}8$ kHz and can be improved to less than 1 Hz by operating the comb in the injection locked regime.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.96.053816

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Microsystems & Nanoengineering•Nov 24, 2025•2 citations
We experimentally study the phase stabilization of a semiconductor double-quantum-dot (DQD) single-atom maser by injection locking. A voltage-biased DQD serves as an electrically tunable microwave frequency gain medium. The statistics of the maser output field demonstrate that the maser can be phase locked to an external cavity drive, with a resulting phase noise L=\ensuremath−99\mathcal{L}=\ensuremath{-}99L=\ensuremath−99 dBc/Hz at a frequency offset of 1.3 MHz. The injection locking range, and the phase of the maser output relative to the injection locking input tone are in good agreement with Adler's theory. Furthermore, the electrically tunable DQD energy level structure allows us to rapidly switch the gain medium on and off, resulting in an emission spectrum that resembles a frequency comb. The free running frequency comb linewidth is \ensuremath≈8\ensuremath{\approx}8\ensuremath≈8 kHz and can be improved to less than 1 Hz by operating the comb in the injection locked regime.
We demonstrate a single atom maser consisting of a semiconductor double quantum dot (DQD) that is embedded in a high-quality-factor microwave cavity. A finite bias drives the DQD out of equilibrium, resulting in sequential single electron tunneling and masing. We develop a dynamic tuning protocol that allows us to controllably increase the time-averaged repumping rate of the DQD at a fixed level detuning, and quantitatively study the transition through the masing threshold. We further examine the crossover from incoherent to coherent emission by measuring the photon statistics across the masing transition. The observed threshold behavior is in agreement with an existing single atom maser theory when small corrections from lead emission are taken into account.
Lasers with high spectral purity are indispensable for optical clocks and coherent manipulation of atomic and molecular qubits for applications such as quantum computing and quantum simulation. Stabilisation of the laser to a reference can provide a narrow linewidth and high spectral purity. However, widely-used diode lasers exhibit fast phase noise that prevents high fidelity qubit manipulation. Here we demonstrate a self-injection locked diode laser system utilizing a medium finesse cavity. The cavity not only provides a stable resonance frequency, but at the same time acts as a low-pass filter for phase noise beyond the cavity linewidth of around 100 kHz, resulting in low phase noise from dc to the injection lock limit. We model the expected laser performance and benchmark it using a single trapped 40^{40}40Ca+^{+}+-ion as a spectrum analyser. We show that the fast phase noise of the laser at relevant Fourier frequencies of 100 kHz to >2 MHz is suppressed to a noise floor of between -110 dBc/Hz and -120 dBc/Hz, an improvement of 20 to 30 dB over state-of-the-art Pound-Drever-Hall-stabilized extended-cavity diode lasers. This strong suppression avoids incoherent (spurious) spin flips during manipulation of optical qubits and improves laser-driven gates in using diode lasers with applications in quantum logic spectroscopy, quantum simulation and quantum computation.
A semiconductor single-atom micromaser consists of a microwave cavity coupled to a gain medium, a double quantum dot driven out of equilibrium by a bias voltage. The masing threshold of this system was recently probed by measuring photon statistics in the cavity [Y-Y. Liu et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 119, 097702 (2017)]. In this paper, we develop an in-depth, rigorous understanding of this experiment and related works. First, we use a semiclassical theory and study transmission spectroscopy. This approach allows us to derive the masing threshold condition for arbitrary temperature and voltage bias, and expose microscopic principles required for realizing photon gain and thereby a photon amplifier. Next, by employing the quantum master equation approach we extend the Scully-Lamb quantum theory of a laser to the present setup, and investigate the statistics of emitted photons below and above the masing threshold as a function of experimentally tunable parameters. Although our focus is primarily on hybrid quantum dot circuit - quantum electrodynamics systems, our approach is adaptable to other light-matter systems where the gain medium consists of a mesoscopic structure.
Lasers with high spectral purity are indispensable for optical clocks and for the coherent manipulation of atomic and molecular qubits in applications such as quantum computing and quantum simulation. While the stabilization of such lasers to a reference can provide a narrow linewidth, the widely used diode lasers exhibit fast phase noise that prevents high-fidelity qubit manipulation. In this paper, we demonstrate a self-injection locked diode laser system that utilizes a high-finesse cavity. This cavity not only provides a stable resonance frequency, it also acts as a low-pass filter for phase noise beyond the cavity linewidth of around 100 kHz, resulting in low phase noise from dc to the injection lock limit. We model the expected laser performance and benchmark it using a single trapped 40 Ca + -ion as a spectrum analyzer. We show that the fast phase noise of the laser at relevant Fourier frequencies of 100 kHz to >2 MHz is suppressed to a noise floor of between −110 dBc/Hz and −120 dBc/Hz, an improvement of 20 to 30 dB over state-of-the-art Pound-Drever-Hall-stabilized extended-cavity diode lasers. This strong suppression avoids incoherent (spurious) spin flips during manipulation of optical qubits and improves laser-driven gates when using diode lasers in applications involving quantum logic spectroscopy, quantum simulation, and quantum computation.
We predict a bistability in the photon emission from a solid-state single-atom laser comprising a microwave cavity coupled to a voltage-biased double quantum dot. To demonstrate that the single-atom laser is bistable, we evaluate the photon emission statistics and show that the distribution takes the shape of a tilted ellipse. The switching rates of the bistability can be extracted from the electrical current and the shot noise in the quantum dots. This provides a means to control the photon emission statistics by modulating the electronic transport in the quantum dots. Our prediction is robust against moderate electronic decoherence and dephasing and is important for current efforts to realize single-atom lasers with gate-defined quantum dots as the gain medium.
Superconducting optomechanical circuits enable frequency mixing of optical and mechanical modes, facilitating the generation of microwave frequency combs. However, such optomechanical combs suffer from frequency fluctuations, requiring their stabilization for applications in precision sensing and signal processing. Here, we investigate the sideband injection locking of microwave frequency combs in a niobium-based superconducting optomechanical circuit. By strongly driving the device with a blue-detuned pump to induce parametric instability and introducing an additional tone near individual comb peaks, we study how the locking range varies with the power, the frequency position, and the sweep direction of the injection tone. The locking responses show interesting features such as injection hysteresis, which cannot be explained by existing models. Numerical simulations of the classical optomechanical equations implementing a cubic mechanical nonlinearity show that the nonlinearity contributes to broadening the locking range. We also characterize the Allan deviations and phase noise of the injection-locked combs for different injection frequencies, demonstrating enhanced stability performance. Our results lay the foundation for the utilization of optomechanical combs for applications in nanomechanical sensing and cryogenic microwave pulse generation.