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arXiv:2611.00279

Coherent transduction and dynamical back-action between light and millimeter waves

André G. Primo, Jiawen Liu, Amit Vankayala, Gabriel Jülg, Aleksei Gaier, Yazan Lampert, Ileana-Cristina Benea-Chelmus

Published Oct 30, 2026• 0 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

Electro-optic transduction can bypass the loss and noise of electronic frequency conversion at millimeter-wave frequencies by parametrically converting signals onto low-loss, low-noise optical carriers, with coupling rates that grow with frequency. Exploiting this growth, however, requires shrinking both the millimeter-wave and optical resonators while preserving their quality factors and spatial overlap, which has not yet been achieved. Here, we demonstrate a triply resonant transducer whose optical and millimeter-wave resonators have comparable dimensions and minimal mode volumes. Coupled lithium niobate Fabry-Pérot cavities, with free spectral ranges above 650 GHz and quality factors up to $10^6$, form a photonic molecule integrated with a quarter-wave gold resonator at 263 GHz. The device reaches a vacuum electro-optic coupling rate $g_0/2π\approx 60$ kHz, six times larger than previous millimeter-wave transducers and sixty times larger than at microwave frequencies. The device optically detects room-temperature thermal millimeter-wave photons at effective occupancies below one, which also serve as a calibration tone for transduction efficiency. Coherent transduction reaches cooperativities approaching 0.3, corresponding to internal efficiencies around 67%, accompanied by electro-optic dynamical back-action that broadens or narrows the optical resonances. These results demonstrate the advantage and feasibility of the frequency scaling of electro-optic coupling, establishing an architecture for weak-signal sensing and quantum and classical networking.

DOI
10.48550/arxiv.2611.00279

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Electro-optic transduction can bypass the loss and noise of electronic frequency conversion at millimeter-wave frequencies by parametrically converting signals onto low-loss, low-noise optical carriers, with coupling rates that grow with frequency. Exploiting this growth, however, requires shrinking both the millimeter-wave and optical resonators while preserving their quality factors and spatial overlap, which has not yet been achieved. Here, we demonstrate a triply resonant transducer whose optical and millimeter-wave resonators have comparable dimensions and minimal mode volumes. Coupled lithium niobate Fabry-Pérot cavities, with free spectral ranges above 650 GHz and quality factors up to 10610^6106, form a photonic molecule integrated with a quarter-wave gold resonator at 263 GHz. The device reaches a vacuum electro-optic coupling rate g0/2π≈60g_0/2π\approx 60g0​/2π≈60 kHz, six times larger than previous millimeter-wave transducers and sixty times larger than at microwave frequencies. The device optically detects room-temperature thermal millimeter-wave photons at effective occupancies below one, which also serve as a calibration tone for transduction efficiency. Coherent transduction reaches cooperativities approaching 0.3, corresponding to internal efficiencies around 67%, accompanied by electro-optic dynamical back-action that broadens or narrows the optical resonances. These results demonstrate the advantage and feasibility of the frequency scaling of electro-optic coupling, establishing an architecture for weak-signal sensing and quantum and classical networking.
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Abstract Emerging communications and computing technologies will rely ever-more on expanding the useful radio frequency spectrum into the millimeter-wave and terahertz frequency range. Both classical and quantum applications would benefit from advancing integration and incorporation of millimeter-wave and electro-optic technologies into common devices, such as modulators. Here we demonstrate an integrated triply-resonant, superconducting electro-optic transducer. Our design incorporates an on-chip 107 GHz niobium titanium nitride superconducting resonator, modulating a thin-film lithium niobate optical racetrack resonator operating at telecom wavelengths. We observe a maximum photon transduction efficiency of η OE ≈ 0.82 × 10 −6 and an average single-photon electro-optic interaction rate of g 0 /2 π ≈ 0.7 kHz. We also present a study and analysis of the challenges associated with the design of integrated millimeter-wave resonators and propose possible solutions to these challenges. Our work paves the way for further advancements in resonant electro-optic technologies operating at millimeter-wave frequencies.
Efficient and stable microwave-optical transduction is a key enabling technology for distributed superconducting quantum computing and heterogeneous quantum networks. Electro-optic transducers based on thin-film lithium niobate (TFLN) have shown strong promise, but demonstrations to date have been limited by various factors such as low frequency bias drift, low efficiency, fabrication complexity, and scalability. Here we demonstrate the first integrated electro-optic microwave-optical transducers realized in thin-film lithium tantalate (TFLT), a material platform offering Pockels nonlinearity comparable to TFLN together with improved bias stability and high-power handling. We fabricate superconducting microwave resonators coupled to tunable photonic-molecule optical resonators using wafer-scale deep ultraviolet lithography, offering high-throughput production of hundreds of devices per wafer. Across six devices we observe coherent bidirectional conversion between C-band optical photons and 4.9-5.5 GHz microwave photons, with measured on-chip efficiencies and inferred single-photon coupling rates g_0/2π ~ 1 kHz consistent with theory. Continuous operation over multiple days is achieved using a static bias field with minimal feedback, demonstrating a major operational advantage. We further characterize optical loss statistics, microwave resonator performance, and optically induced added noise under pulsed pumping, finding less than one added photon for 100 microsecond pulses at the highest measured efficiencies. These results establish TFLT as a scalable and robust electro-optic platform for future quantum interconnects and modular quantum processors.