We study the quantum transduction of a superconducting qubit to an optical photon in electro-optomechanical and electro-optomagnonical systems. The electro-optomechanical system comprises a flux-tunable transmon qubit coupled to a suspended mechanical beam, which then couples to an optical cavity. Similarly, in an electro-optomagnonical system, a flux-tunable transmon qubit is coupled to an optical whispering gallery mode via a magnon excitation in a YIG ferromagnetic sphere. In both systems, the transduction process is done in sequence. In the first sequence, the qubit states are encoded in coherent excitations of phonon/magnon modes through the phonon/magnon-qubit interaction, which is non-demolition in the qubit part. We then measure the phonon/magnon excitations, which reveal the qubit states, by counting the average number of photons in the optical cavities. The measurement of the phonon/magnon excitations can be performed at a regular intervals of time.
We study the quantum transduction of a superconducting qubit to an optical photon in electro-optomechanical and electro-optomagnonical systems. The electro-optomechanical system comprises a flux-tunable transmon qubit coupled to a suspended mechanical beam, which then couples to an optical cavity. Similarly, in an electro-optomagnonical system, a flux-tunable transmon qubit is coupled to an optical whispering gallery mode via a magnon excitation in a YIG ferromagnetic sphere. In both systems, the transduction process is done in sequence. In the first sequence, the qubit states are encoded in coherent excitations of phonon/magnon modes through the phonon/magnon-qubit interaction, which is non-demolition in the qubit part. We then measure the phonon/magnon excitations, which reveal the qubit states, by counting the average number of photons in the optical cavities. The measurement of the phonon/magnon excitations can be performed at a regular intervals of time.
We study the quantum transduction of a superconducting qubit to an optical photon in electro-optomechanical and electro-optomagnonical systems. The electro-optomechanical system comprises a flux-tunable transmon qubit coupled to a suspended mechanical beam, which then couples to an optical cavity. Similarly, in an electro-optomagnonical system, a flux-tunable transmon qubit is coupled to an optical whispering gallery mode via a magnon excitation in a yttrium iron garnet ferromagnetic sphere. In both systems, the transduction process is done in sequence. In the first sequence, the qubit states are encoded in coherent excitations of phonon (magnon) modes through the phonon-qubit (magnon-qubit) interaction, which is nondemolition in the qubit part. We then measure the phonon (magnon) excitations, which reveal the qubit states, by counting the average number of photons in the optical cavities. The measurement of the phonon (magnon) excitations can be performed at regular intervals of time.
The development of scalable quantum networks requires coherent interfaces capable of converting microwave photons used in superconducting quantum processors into optical photons suitable for long-distance fiber transmission. This review surveys recent progress in microwave-to-optical quantum transduction across optomechanical, electro-optic, and magneto-optic platforms, with emphasis on conversion efficiency, bandwidth, added noise, and operating temperature. In addition to standard metrics, we propose the internal efficiency eta_in and the magnon decay rate kappa_m/2pi as normalized parameters that enable fairer comparison across heterogeneous implementations. Optomechanical systems achieve internal phonon-to-photon efficiencies of 93% with sub-quantum added noise of 0.25 quanta at millikelvin temperatures. Electro-optic devices based on LiNbO3 and AlN have advanced from room-temperature efficiencies below 1% to millikelvin systems with internal efficiencies approaching 99.5%, added noise as low as 0.16 quanta at 60 mK, and bandwidths extending to several tens of megahertz. Magneto-optic (optomagnonic) platforms exhibit the lowest efficiencies (typically 10−10 to 10−8), but offer intrinsic non-reciprocity and broadband magnonic operation, with emerging approaches based on topological heterostructures and magnon squeezing predicting enhancements up to 10−4. Optomechanical systems appear promising for high-fidelity quantum state transfer, electro-optic transducers for high-bandwidth coherent links, and magneto-optic devices for non-reciprocal network components. We discuss the fundamental trade-off between efficiency and added noise across all three platforms, and argue that heterogeneous microwave-optical transduction is emerging as a key enabling technology for distributed quantum computing and large-scale quantum networks.
Quantum frequency conversion between superconducting (SC) microwave qubits and telecom optical photons is critical for long distance communication of networked SC quantum processors. While SC qubits operate at cryogenic temperatures to sustain their quantum coherence, converting them to the optical domain enables transferring the quantum states to room temperature and over long distances. For such a quantum state transduction process, several schemes have been investigated, including optomechanics, magnons, piezomechanics, and Pockels electro-optics (EO). The EO conversion approach is particularly attractive since it is broadband, low noise, mechanically and thermally stable (i.e., does not rely on freestanding structures), scalable (largescale integration of EO devices with superconducting circuits is possible), and tunable (e.g., using bias voltages). In this presentation we review our progress in an electro-optic based quantum transduction and discuss the promises and challenges.
Rigidity of an ordered phase in condensed matter results in collective excitation modes spatially extending in macroscopic dimensions. Magnon is a quantum of an elementary excitation in the ordered spin system, such as ferromagnet. Being low dissipative, dynamics of magnons in ferromagnetic insulators has been extensively studied and widely applied for decades in the contexts of ferromagnetic resonance, and more recently of Bose-Einstein condensation as well as spintronics. Moreover, towards hybrid systems for quantum memories and transducers, coupling of magnons and microwave photons in a resonator have been investigated. However, quantum-state manipulation at the single-magnon level has remained elusive because of the lack of anharmonic element in the system. Here we demonstrate coherent coupling between a magnon excitation in a millimetre-sized ferromagnetic sphere and a superconducting qubit, where the interaction is mediated by the virtual photon excitation in a microwave cavity. We obtain the coupling strength far exceeding the damping rates, thus bringing the hybrid system into the strong coupling regime. Furthermore, we find a tunable magnon-qubit coupling scheme utilising a parametric drive with a microwave. Our approach provides a versatile tool for quantum control and measurement of the magnon excitations and thus opens a new discipline of quantum magnonics.
Superconducting qubits, realized by incorporating Josephson junctions into superconducting circuits, behave as artificial atoms with anharmonic energy spectra and can be precisely controlled and measured using microwave cavities within the framework of circuit quantum electrodynamics (cQED). Since its emergence in the early 2000s, cQED has established superconducting qubits as leading candidates for scalable quantum devices and has enabled the exploration of hybrid quantum systems that integrate disparate physical platformsThis review surveys superconducting hybrid quantum electromechanical systems in which mechanical resonators are coupled to superconducting qubits, with a focus on two widely used qubit platforms: the transmon and the fluxonium. We provide an overview of the underlying coupling mechanisms arising from interactions through the phase and charge degrees of freedom of the qubit, and discuss how these mechanisms give rise to both longitudinal and transverse qubit-mechanical interactions. We further review extensions of electromechanical platforms to electro-optomechanical architectures, in which optical cavities are integrated to enable coherent interfacing between superconducting circuits and optical photons. This review aims to present a unified framework and perspective on qubit-mechanical and qubit-mechanical-optical hybrid systems in superconducting quantum technologies and applications related to sensors.
Abstract We show how to prepare a steady-state entangled state between magnons and optical photons in an opto-magnomechanical configuration, where a mechanical vibration mode couples to a magnon mode in a ferrimagnet by the dispersive magnetostrictive interaction, and to an optical cavity by the radiation pressure. We find that, by appropriately driving the magnon mode and the cavity to simultaneously activate the magnomechanical Stokes and the optomechanical anti-Stokes scattering, a stationary optomagnonic entangled state can be created. We further show that, by activating the magnomechanical state–swap interaction and subsequently sending a weak red-detuned optical pulse to drive the cavity, the magnonic state can be read out in the cavity output field of the pulse via the mechanical transduction. The demonstrated entanglement and state-readout protocols in such a novel opto-magnomechanical configuration allow us to optically control, prepare, and read out quantum states of collective spin excitations in solids, and provide promising opportunities for the study of quantum magnonics, macroscopic quantum states, and magnonic quantum information processing.