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Laser Physics Letters

Superluminal pulse propagation and amplification without inversion of microwave radiation via four-wave mixing in superconducting phase quantum circuits

Zahra Amini Sabegh, Azar Vafafard, Mohammad Ali Maleki, Mohammad Mahmoudi

Published Jul 8, 2015• 11 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We study the interaction of the microwave fields with an array of superconducting phase quantum circuits. It is shown that the different four-level configurations i.e. cascade, N-type, diamond, Y-type and inverted Y-type systems can be obtained in the superconducting phase quantum circuits by keeping the third order of the Josephson junction potential expansion whereas by dropping the third order term, just the cascade configuration can be established. We study the propagation and amplification of a microwave field in a four-level cascade quantum system, which is realized in an array of superconducting phase quantum circuits. We find that by increasing the microwave pump tones feeding the system, the normal dispersion switches to the anomalous and the gain-assisted superluminal microwave propagation is obtained in an array of many superconducting phase quantum circuits. Moreover, it is demonstrated that the stimulated microwave field is generated via four-wave mixing without any inversion population in the energy levels of the system (amplification without inversion) and the group velocity of the generated pulse can be controlled by the external oscillating magnetic fluxes. We also show that in some special set of parameters, the absorption-free superluminal generated microwave propagation is obtained in superconducting phase quantum circuit system.

DOI
10.1088/1612-2011/12/8/085202

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We study the interaction of the microwave fields with an array of superconducting phase quantum circuits. It is shown that the different four-level configurations i.e. cascade, N-type, diamond, Y-type and inverted Y-type systems can be obtained in the superconducting phase quantum circuits by keeping the third order of the Josephson junction potential expansion whereas by dropping the third order term, just the cascade configuration can be established. We study the propagation and amplification of a microwave field in a four-level cascade quantum system, which is realized in an array of superconducting phase quantum circuits. We find that by increasing the microwave pump tones feeding the system, the normal dispersion switches to the anomalous and the gain-assisted superluminal microwave propagation is obtained in an array of many superconducting phase quantum circuits. Moreover, it is demonstrated that the stimulated microwave field is generated via four-wave mixing without any inversion population in the energy levels of the system (amplification without inversion) and the group velocity of the generated pulse can be controlled by the external oscillating magnetic fluxes. We also show that in some special set of parameters, the absorption-free superluminal generated microwave propagation is obtained in superconducting phase quantum circuit system.
We study the propagation and amplification of a microwave field in a four-level cascade quantum system which is realized in a superconducting phase quantum circuit. It is shown that by increasing the microwave pump tones feeding the system, the normal dispersion switches to the anomalous and the gain-assisted superluminal microwave propagation is obtained in this system. Moreover, it is demonstrated that the stimulated microwave field is generated via four-wave mixing without any inversion population in the energy levels of the system (amplification without inversion) and the group velocity of the generated pulse can be controlled by the external oscillating magnetic fluxes. We also show that in some special set of parameters, the absorption-free superluminal generated microwave propagation is obtained in superconducting phase quantum circuit system.
Three-wave mixing in second-order nonlinear optical processes cannot occur in atomic systems due to the electric-dipole selection rules. In contrast, we demonstrate that second-order nonlinear processes can occur in a superconducting quantum circuit (i.e., a superconducting artificial atom) when the inversion symmetry of the potential energy is broken by simply changing the applied magnetic flux. In particular, we show that difference- and sum-frequencies (and second harmonics) can be generated in the microwave regime in a controllable manner by using a single three-level superconducting flux quantum circuit (SFQC). For our proposed parameters, the frequency tunability of this circuit can be achieved in the range of about 17 GHz for the sum-frequency generation, and around 42 GHz (or 26 GHz) for the difference-frequency generation. Our proposal provides a simple method to generate second-order nonlinear processes within current experimental parameters of SFQCs.
We investigate the controllable group velocity of a microwave probe field in a superconductive quantum circuit (SQC) pumped by microwave fields, and the use of such a SQC function as an artificial Λ-type three-level atom. The exchange between the subluminal and the superluminal states of the probe field can be realized simply by sweeping the pumping intensity, and the superluminal state is usually realized with a lower absorption. This work is one of the efforts to extend the study of electromagnetically induced transparency and its related properties from the lightwave band to the microwave band.
We demonstrate the controllable nonlinear microwave modulation in a cyclically driven three-level superconducting Josephson system. By designing two subtle matched conditions in the △-type atom-field configuration, a new physical mechanism – combined action of nonlinear wave mixing and wave interference – is developed and leads to not only amplification but also attenuation for two microwave signals. Our results show that such a nonlinear manipulation of the signal transition from enhancement to damping can be tuned in a large scope by controlling the relative phase and the driving-field frequency and thus the solid-state Josephson system can act as a phase- and frequency-controlled amplitude modulator. Our study opens up a fascinating perspective for its widespread applications in nonlinear optics and quantum information science.
Abstract We study the absorption and optical bistability (OB) behavior of the superconducting phase quantum circuits in the four-level cascade and closed-loop configurations. It is shown that the OB is established in both configurations and it can be controlled by the intensity and frequency of applied fluxes. It is also demonstrated that the gain-assisted OB is generated in both configurations and can switch to the gain-assisted optical multistability (OM) only by changing the relative phase of applied fluxes in closed-loop quantum system. It is worth noting that the several significant output fluxes with negligible inputs can be seen in bistable behavior of the closed-loop configuration due to the nonlinear processing.
Using different configurations of applied strong driving and weak probe fields, we find that only a single three-level superconducting quantum circuit (SQC) is enough to realize amplification, attenuation, and frequency conversion of microwave fields. Such a three-level SQC has to possess $\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Delta}}$-type cyclic transitions. Different from the parametric amplification (attenuation) and frequency conversion in nonlinear optical media, the real energy levels of the three-level SQC are involved in the energy exchange when these processes are completed. We quantitatively discuss the effects of amplification (attenuation) and the frequency conversion for different types of driving fields. The values and conditions are obtained for the optimal gains for amplification (attenuation) and the optimal conversion efficiencies. Our study provides a method to amplify (attenuate) microwave, realize frequency conversion, and also lay a foundation for generating single or entangled microwave photon states using a single three-level SQC.