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arXiv:1902.08066 · Scientific Reports

Near-Field Scanning Microwave Microscopy in the Single Photon Regime

Shaun Geaney, David Cox, T. Hönigl-Decrinis, Rais S. Shaikhaidarov, Sergey Kubatkin, T. Lindström, Andrey V. Danilov, Sebastian E. de Graaf

Published Aug 29, 2019• 36 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

Abstract The microwave properties of nano-scale structures are important in a wide variety of applications in quantum technology. Here we describe a low-power cryogenic near-field scanning microwave microscope (NSMM) which maintains nano-scale dielectric contrast down to the single microwave photon regime, up to 109 times lower power than in typical NSMMs. We discuss the remaining challenges towards developing nano-scale NSMM for quantum coherent interaction with two-level systems as an enabling tool for the development of quantum technologies in the microwave regime.

DOI
10.1038/s41598-019-48780-3

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Applied Physics Letters•Oct 11, 1993•11 citations
Abstract The microwave properties of nano-scale structures are important in a wide variety of applications in quantum technology. Here we describe a low-power cryogenic near-field scanning microwave microscope (NSMM) which maintains nano-scale dielectric contrast down to the single microwave photon regime, up to 109 times lower power than in typical NSMMs. We discuss the remaining challenges towards developing nano-scale NSMM for quantum coherent interaction with two-level systems as an enabling tool for the development of quantum technologies in the microwave regime.
Near field Scanning Microwave Microscopy (NSMM) is a scanning probe technique that non-invasively can obtain material properties on the nano-scale at microwave frequencies. While focus has been on developing room-temperature systems it was recently shown that this technique can potentially reach the quantum regime, opening up for applications in materials science and device characterization in solid state quantum information processing. In this paper we theoretically investigate this new regime of NSMM. Specifically we show that interaction between a resonant NSMM probe and certain types of two-level systems become possible when the NSMM probe operates in the (sub-) single photon regime, and we expect a high signal-to-noise ratio if operated under the right conditions. This would allow to detect single atomic material defects with energy splittings in the GHz range with nano-scale resolution, provided that individual defects in the material under study are well enough separated. We estimate that this condition is fulfilled for materials with loss tangents below tan δ ∼ 10(-3) which holds for materials used in today's quantum circuits and devices where typically tan δ < 10(-5). We also propose several extensions to a resonant NSMM that could improve sensitivity and functionality also for microscopes operating in a high power regime.
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 μV, 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 used for parallel operation as an atomic force microscope (AFM). The resonator is magnetically coupled to a transmission line for readout, and to achieve enhanced sensitivity we employ a Pound-Drever-Hall measurement scheme to lock to the resonance frequency. We achieve a well localized near-field around the tip such that the microwave resolution is comparable to the AFM resolution, and a capacitive sensitivity down to 6.4 × 10(-20) F/Hz, limited by mechanical noise. We believe that the results presented here are a significant step towards probing quantum systems at the nanoscale using near-field scanning microwave microscopy.
In this thesis we use high-Q superconducting thin-film microwave resonators to interact with several types of quantum mechanical two-level systems. Such a resonator is used as the central building block in a cryogenic near-field scanning microwave microscope (NSMM) to reach a completely new regime of NSMM operation. In this regime where the superconducting resonator is only populated with a small number of photons, we demonstrate a capacitance sensitivity down to 64x10^(-21) Farad/rtHz and nanoscale resolution, which is sufficient to apply this scanning probe technique to quantum coherent objects. Such a 'coherent'-NSMM enables several new applications: for example to study the interaction of the NSMM probe with two-level defects in samples and to characterize artificial two-level systems (qubits), which eventually could lead to better understanding of decoherence mechanisms in superconducting quantum circuits. We demonstrate the ability to reach this regime in a sample consisting of a Cooper-pair box (CPB) weakly coupled to a superconducting resonator. In the strong driving regime we observe Landau-Zener-Stückelberg interference and we discover a new type of relaxation mechanism in the strongly driven CPBthat involves pair breaking and quasiparticle tunneling. It results in a recovered parity of the CPB and a population inversion of the dressed states. Not only does this demonstrate the applicability of NSMM for qubit characterization, but the quasiparticle mediated population inversion also becomes suitable for robust charge sensing in a scanning probe setup. To integrate the superconducting resonator onto our NSMM probe we develop a new type of resonator design - the fractal design - that have a very small external dipole moment allowing for a compact resonator. Another advantage of the fractal resonator is its resilience to magnetic fields. We show that the fractal resonator, after further optimization, can maintain quality factors above 10^5 in applied fields of more than 400 mT, something that becomes particularly useful for the interrogation of spin ensembles coupled to the resonator. We demonstrate that it is possible to detect down to 5x10^5 spins/rtHz in a very small volume coupled to a fractal resonator. Furthermore, the low dipole moment of the fractal resonator allows us to also introduce DC bias into the resonator without degrading its Q-factor. This is an important technological step that allows us to interact with new materials where spins can be quickly and locally manipulated using electric fields and we demonstrate the first steps in this direction with ensembles of manganese doped ZnO nanowires and frustrated molecular Cu spin triangles.The measurements achieve a very high sensitivity thanks to the Pound-Drever-Hall locking technique used. We develop this technique such that both resonance frequency and quality factor can be monitored with very high accuracy in real time. The demonstrated stability is ~30 Hz/rtHz for frequency readout and we can determine the Q-factor with a precision of 34 dB/rtHz.
We use a small Bose-Einstein condensate on an atom chip as an interferometric scanning probe to map out a microwave field near the chip surface with a few micrometers resolution. With the use of entanglement between the atoms, our interferometer overcomes the standard quantum limit of interferometry by 4 dB and maintains enhanced performance for interrogation times up to 10 ms. This corresponds to a microwave magnetic field sensitivity of 77 pT/√Hz in a probe volume of 20 μm(3). Quantum metrology with entangled atoms is useful in measurements with high spatial resolution, since the atom number in the probe volume is limited by collisional loss. High-resolution measurements of microwave near fields, as demonstrated here, are important for the development of integrated microwave circuits for quantum information processing and applications in communication technology.
Advanced microwave technologies constitute the foundation of a wide range of modern sciences, including microwave integrated circuits, quantum computing, microwave photonics, spintronics, etc. To facilitate the design of chip-based microwave devices, there is an increasing demand for state-of-the-art microscopic techniques that are capable of characterizing near-field microwave distribution and performance. In this work, we integrate Josephson junctions onto a nanosized quartz tip, forming a highly sensitive microwave mixer on-tip. This allows us to conduct spectroscopic imaging of near-field microwave distributions with high spatial resolution. By leveraging its microwave-sensitive characteristics, our Josephson microscopy achieves a broad detecting bandwidth of ≤200 GHz, as well as remarkable frequency and intensity resolutions. Near-field characterizations of microwave circuits are also conducted to demonstrate the capabilities of Josephson microscopy. Our work emphasizes the benefits of utilizing Josephson microscopy as a real-time, non-destructive technique to advance integrated microwave devices.
Low temperature scanning electron microscopy (LTSEM) offers the possibility for spatially resolved investigations of microwave properties of single Josephson junctions, superconducting striplines, resonators, and complex cryoelectric circuits during their operation. The spatial resolution of about 1 μm is at least two orders of magnitude better than the typical wavelength (≳100 μm in the elements) in the frequency range of interest (50–500 GHz). We demonstrate that LTSEM is a well suited tool for the experimental investigation of superconducting microwave devices and cryoelectronic circuits.