Photon-pressure coupling between two superconducting circuits is a promising platform for investigating radiation-pressure coupling in distinct parameter regimes and for the development of radio-frequency (RF) quantum photonics and quantum-limited RF sensing. Here, we implement photon-pressure coupling between two superconducting circuits, one of which can be operated as a parametric amplifier. We demonstrate a Kerr-based enhancement of the photon-pressure single-photon coupling rate and an increase of the cooperativity by one order of magnitude in the amplifier regime. In addition, we observe that the intracavity amplification reduces the measurement imprecision of RF signal detection. Last, we demonstrate that RF mode sideband cooling is unexpectedly not limited to the effective amplifier mode temperature arising from quantum noise amplification, which we interpret in the context of nonreciprocal heat transfer between the two circuits. Our results demonstrate how Kerr amplification can be used as resource for enhanced photon-pressure systems and Kerr cavity optomechanics.
Photon-pressure circuits are the circuit implementation of the cavity optomechanical Hamiltonian and discussed for qubit readout, low-frequency quantum photonics and dark matter axion detection. Due to the enormous design flexibility of superconducting circuits, photon-pressure systems provide fascinating possibilities to explore unusual parameter regimes of the optomechanical Hamiltonian. Here, we report the realization of a photon-pressure platform, in which a GHz circuit interacts with a MHz circuit via a magnetic-flux-tunable combination of dispersive and dissipative photon-pressure. In addition, both coupling rates are considerably enhanced by nonlinearities of the GHz-mode, which leads to the multi-photon coupling rates scaling stronger with the pump photon number nc than the usual nc dependence. We demonstrate that interference of the two interaction paths leads to a Fano-like response in photon-pressure induced transparency, and that the dynamical backaction is considerably modified compared to the dispersive case, including a parametric instability caused by a red-detuned pump tone.