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Nature Electronics

Photon conversion integrated

Christiana Varnava

Published Sep 7, 2018• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Efficient conversion between microwave and optical photons is important for the development of hybrid quantum platforms in which quantum information is processed by superconducting circuits and transmitted with optical photons. A promising approach is to use electro-optic modulation with a microwave cavity coupled to an optical cavity, where microwave photons are up-converted to optical photons through sum frequency generation, and optical photons are converted to microwave photons through difference frequency generation. However, the frequency matching conditions in such set-ups usually require the size of the device to be large enough so that the optical frequencies of the pump and signal photons are supported. Hong Tang and colleagues have now fabricated a hybrid superconducting–photonic device that overcomes this limitation by using an integrated planar geometry to coherently convert between microwave and optical photons. adapted under a Creative Commons license CC BY-NC 4.0 ; AAAS

DOI
10.1038/s41928-018-0141-x

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Efficient conversion between microwave and optical photons is important for the development of hybrid quantum platforms in which quantum information is processed by superconducting circuits and transmitted with optical photons. A promising approach is to use electro-optic modulation with a microwave cavity coupled to an optical cavity, where microwave photons are up-converted to optical photons through sum frequency generation, and optical photons are converted to microwave photons through difference frequency generation. However, the frequency matching conditions in such set-ups usually require the size of the device to be large enough so that the optical frequencies of the pump and signal photons are supported. Hong Tang and colleagues have now fabricated a hybrid superconducting–photonic device that overcomes this limitation by using an integrated planar geometry to coherently convert between microwave and optical photons. adapted under a Creative Commons license CC BY-NC 4.0 ; AAAS
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We propose a device architecture capable of direct quantum coherent electro-optical conversion of microwave-to-optical photons. The hybrid system consists of a planar superconducting microwave circuit coupled to an integrated whispering-gallery-mode microresonator made from an electro-optical material. We show that by exploiting the large vacuum electric field of the planar microwave resonator, electro-optical (vacuum) coupling strengths g0{g}_{0}g0​ as large as $\ensuremath{\sim}2\ensuremath{\pi}O(10\ensuremath{-}100)$ kHz are achievable with currently available technology---a more than 3 orders of magnitude improvement over prior designs and realizations. Operating at millikelvin temperatures, such a converter would enable high-efficiency conversion of microwave-to-optical photons. We analyze the added noise and show that maximum quantum coherent conversion efficiency is achieved for a multiphoton cooperativity of unity which can be reached with optical power as low as O(1)O(1)O(1) mW.
Microwave and optical photons are two principle carriers for quantum information. Microwave photons can be effectively manipulated by superconducting circuits at milli-Kelvin environments; optical photons transmit information over long distances in optical fibers. Therefore, microwave-to-optical (MO) quantum converters, which interface superconducting qubits and optical photons, represent an indispensable component in future quantum networks. Here, we present our recent efforts on developing integrated gigahertz piezo-optomechanics and electro-optics (EO) MO converters. We demonstrate efficient bi-directional conversion in both schemes at cryogenic temperatures. Moreover, we realized MO conversion with the device in the quantum ground state, while achieving efficient conversion efficiency. Our results represent a substantial step towards faithful microwave to optical quantum conversions.
Abstract We describe a scheme to coherently convert a microwave photon of a superconducting co-planar waveguide resonator to an optical photon emitted into a well-defined temporal and spatial mode. The conversion is realized by a cold atomic ensemble trapped close the surface of the superconducting atom chip, near the antinode of the microwave cavity. The microwave photon couples to a strong Rydberg transition of the atoms that are also driven by a pair of laser fields with appropriate frequencies and wavevectors for an efficient wave-mixing process. With only several thousand atoms in an ensemble of moderate density, the microwave photon can be completely converted into an optical photon emitted with high probability into the phase matched direction and, e.g. fed into a fiber waveguide. This scheme operates in a free-space configuration, without requiring strong coupling of the atoms to a resonant optical cavity.
Abstract Frequency conversion between microwave and optical photons is a key enabling technology to create links between superconducting quantum processors and to realize distributed quantum networks. We propose a microwave-optical transduction platform based on long-coherence time superconducting radio-frequency (SRF) cavities coupled to electro-optic optical cavities to mitigate the loss mechanisms that limit the attainment of high conversion efficiency. We optimize the microwave-optical field overlap and optical coupling losses in the design while achieving long microwave and optical photon lifetime at milli-Kelvin temperatures. This represents a significant enhancement of the transduction efficiency up to 50% under incoming pump power of 140 μW, which allows the conversion of few-photon quantum signals. Furthermore, this scheme exhibits high resolution for optically reading out the dispersive shift induced by a superconducting transmon qubit coupled to the SRF cavity. We also show that low microwave losses enhance the fidelity of heralded entanglement generation between two remote quantum systems. Finally, high precision in quantum sensing can be reached below the standard quantum limit.
We propose a low-noise, triply resonant, electro-optic (EO) scheme for quantum microwave-to-optical conversion based on coupled nanophotonics resonators integrated with a superconducting qubit. Our optical system features a split resonance---a doublet---with a tunable frequency splitting that matches the microwave resonance frequency of the superconducting qubit. This is in contrast to conventional approaches, where large optical resonators with free-spectral range comparable to the qubit microwave frequency are used. In our system, EO mixing between the optical pump coupled into the low-frequency doublet mode and a resonance microwave photon results in an up-converted optical photon on resonance with high-frequency doublet mode. Importantly, the down-conversion process, which is the source of noise, is suppressed in our scheme as the coupled-resonator system does not support modes at that frequency. Our device has at least an order of magnitude smaller footprint than conventional devices, resulting in large overlap between optical and microwave fields and a large photon conversion rate ($g/2\ensuremath{\pi}$) in the range of $\ensuremath{\sim}5$--15 kHz. Owing to a large ggg factor and doubly resonant nature of our device, microwave-to-optical frequency conversion can be achieved with optical pump powers in the range of tens of microwatts, even with moderate values for optical Q\mathit{Q}Q ($\ensuremath{\sim}{10}^{6}$) and microwave QQQ ($\ensuremath{\sim}{10}^{4}$). The performance metrics of our device, with substantial improvement over the previous EO-based approaches, promise a scalable quantum microwave-to-optical conversion and networking of superconducting processors via optical fiber communication.