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Three-wave mixing of microwave photons with Josephson junctions and resonators

Emmanuel Flurin, Nicolas Roch, Philippe Campagne-Ibarcq, F. Mallet, Michel Devoret, Benjamin Huard

Published Mar 19, 2012• 0 citations
OpenAlex

Abstract

Three-wave mixing devices, i.e. non-linear circuits converting power among three microwave signals, are key elements of analog information processing in the microwave domain. However, they are based on dissipative components such as semiconductor diodes, or SIS tunnel junctions biased near the superconducting gap. The loss of signal limits their operation and also introduces noise above the minimum required by quantum mechanics. By using Josephson junctions and superconducting resonators, we've been able to build such a quantum device. In its amplification mode, this device can be used as a preamplifier in many experiments where a few photon wide microwave signals must be measured by commercial instruments, which are sensitive to powers several orders of magnitude larger. The price to pay for this amplification is the necessary degradation of information. Indeed, an extension of the no-cloning theorem imposes that a linear phase preserving amplifier adds at least half a quantum of noise to the signal. By amplifying the finite frequency noise emitted by an NIN tunnel junction, we demonstrated that the total measurement chain adds less than 2.3 quanta to this limit thanks to our device. The operating principle of this device is based on Josephson parametric amplification. I will explain this mechanism and present results which illustrate that it can generate quantum correlated pairs of spatially separated photons with different wavelengths known as two-mode squeezed states. This experiment exploits the tunability of our device and the ease-of-use inherent to micro-wave circuits to perform a quantum optics experiment demonstrating this entanglement.

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Three-wave mixing devices, i.e. non-linear circuits converting power among three microwave signals, are key elements of analog information processing in the microwave domain. However, they are based on dissipative components such as semiconductor diodes, or SIS tunnel junctions biased near the superconducting gap. The loss of signal limits their operation and also introduces noise above the minimum required by quantum mechanics. By using Josephson junctions and superconducting resonators, we've been able to build such a quantum device. In its amplification mode, this device can be used as a preamplifier in many experiments where a few photon wide microwave signals must be measured by commercial instruments, which are sensitive to powers several orders of magnitude larger. The price to pay for this amplification is the necessary degradation of information. Indeed, an extension of the no-cloning theorem imposes that a linear phase preserving amplifier adds at least half a quantum of noise to the signal. By amplifying the finite frequency noise emitted by an NIN tunnel junction, we demonstrated that the total measurement chain adds less than 2.3 quanta to this limit thanks to our device. The operating principle of this device is based on Josephson parametric amplification. I will explain this mechanism and present results which illustrate that it can generate quantum correlated pairs of spatially separated photons with different wavelengths known as two-mode squeezed states. This experiment exploits the tunability of our device and the ease-of-use inherent to micro-wave circuits to perform a quantum optics experiment demonstrating this entanglement.
Three-wave mixing devices, i.e. non-linear circuits converting power among three microwave signals, are key elements of analog information processing in the microwave domain. However, they are based on dissipative components such as semiconductor diodes, or SIS tunnel junctions biased near the superconducting gap. The loss of signal limits their operation and also introduces noise above the minimum required by quantum mechanics. By using Josephson junctions and superconducting resonators, we've been able to build such a quantum device. In its amplification mode, this device can be used as a preamplifier in many experiments where a few photon wide microwave signals must be measured by commercial instruments, which are sensitive to powers several orders of magnitude larger. The price to pay for this amplification is the necessary degradation of information. Indeed, an extension of the no-cloning theorem imposes that a linear phase preserving amplifier adds at least half a quantum of noise to the signal. By amplifying the finite frequency noise emitted by an NIN tunnel junction, we demonstrated that the total measurement chain adds less than 2.3 quanta to this limit thanks to our device. The operating principle of this device is based on Josephson parametric amplification. I will explain this mechanism and show preliminary results which illustrate that it can generate quantum correlated pairs of spatially separated photons with different wavelengths known as two-mode squeezed states. This experiment exploits the tunability of our device and the ease-of-use inherent to micro-wave circuits to perform a quantum optics experiment demonstrating this entanglement.
Nowadays, it is possible to control and measure the quantum state of systems with a few degrees of freedom, whether they are microscopic objects like cold atoms and single photons, or macroscopic objects like superconducting circuits. Such delicate experiments require an interface which bridges the gap of orders of magnitudes in energy between the quantum object and the data acquisition system. This problem is solved by an active device: the amplifier. Although the amplifier is necessary to overcome the noise at the stage of data acquisition, it eventually alters the signal. We have developed an amplifier for microwave signals which adds only the minimum of noise allowed by quantum laws: the equivalent of half a photon of noise referred to the input. Our amplifier is based on a superconducting circuit of Josephson junctions in superconducting resonators. We found a way to make it practical to use by tuning its center frequency over 500 MHz. We are now trying to increase its bandwidth for a given gain using more compact resonators. In this talk, I will show how the amplifier works and also its applications to quantum information processing. This circuit can be used to generate and combine twin microwave photons within an integrated circuit. Finally, I will show that such an amplifier allows real time measurement of the state of a qubit and quantum feedback protocols.
Amplifiers are crucial in every experiment carrying out a very sensitive measurement. However, they always degrade the information by adding noise. Quantum mechanics puts a limit on how small this degradation can be. Theoretically, the minimum noise energy added by a phase-preserving amplifier to the signal it processes amounts at least to half a photon at the signal frequency. In this article, we show that we can build a practical microwave amplifying circuit that fulfills the minimal requirements to reach this quantum limit. The readout of solid-state qubits, and more generally, the measurement of very weak signals in various areas of science, can benefit from this new superconducting device. We also discuss how our circuit can be the basic buiding block for a variety of practical applications such as frequency conversion with and without photon number gain, dynamic cooling and production of entangled signal pairs.
We present the first experimental realization of a widely frequency tunable, nondegenerate three-wave mixing device for quantum signals at gigahertz frequency. It is based on a new superconducting building block consisting of a ring of four Josephson junctions shunted by a cross of four linear inductances. The phase configuration of the ring remains unique over a wide range of magnetic fluxes threading the loop. It is thus possible to vary the inductance of the ring with flux while retaining a strong, dissipation-free, and noiseless nonlinearity. The device has been operated in amplifier mode, and its noise performance has been evaluated by using the noise spectrum emitted by a voltage-biased tunnel junction at finite frequency as a test signal. The unprecedented accuracy with which the crossover between zero-point fluctuations and shot noise has been measured provides an upper bound for the noise and dissipation intrinsic to the device.
Non-linear microwave devices based on Josephson tunnel junctions and operating near the quantum limit have so far been based on SQUIDS and degenerate parametrically pumped oscillators, or related systems. This chapter addresses a new type of Josephson device operation that performs quantum analog signal processing, namely that of non-degenerate three-wave mixing. Both quantum-limited amplification and frequency conversion are possible with such devices, and their characteristics are entirely calculable analytically. The chapter in particular discusses the relationships between photon number gain, bandwidth, and dynamic range.
The fundamental noise limit of a phase-preserving amplifier at frequency [Formula: see text] is the standard quantum limit [Formula: see text]. In the microwave range, the best candidates have been amplifiers based on superconducting quantum interference devices (reaching the noise temperature [Formula: see text] at 700 MHz), and non-degenerate parametric amplifiers (reaching noise levels close to the quantum limit [Formula: see text] at 8 GHz). We introduce a new type of an amplifier based on the negative resistance of a selectively damped Josephson junction. Noise performance of our amplifier is limited by mixing of quantum noise from Josephson oscillation regime down to the signal frequency. Measurements yield nearly quantum-limited operation, [Formula: see text] at 2.8 GHz, owing to self-organization of the working point. Simulations describe the characteristics of our device well and indicate potential for wide bandwidth operation.