Quantum optics reveals the nature of superconductivity

Franco Nori, J. Q. You

Superconducting circuits [1-11] based on Josephson junctions exhibit macroscopic quantum coherence and can behave like artificial atoms. Recent technological advances have made it possible to implement atomic-physics and quantum-optics experiments on a chip using these artificial atoms. This pedagogical talk presents a brief introduction to this rapidly advancing field. We not only discuss phenomena analogous to those in atomic physics and quantum optics with natural atoms, but also highlight those not occurring in natural atoms.

Andrew L. DiRienzo, Daniel N. Rogovin, Marlan O. Scully +3 more

Franco Nori

References available online at our web site: J.Q. You, Z.D. Wang, W. Zhang, F. Nori, Manipulating and probing Majorana fermions using superconducting circuits, (2011). Arxiv. J.R. Johansson, G. Johansson, C.M. Wilson, F. Nori, Dynamical Casimir effect in a superconducting coplanar waveguide, Phys. Rev. Lett. 103, 147003 (2009). J.R. Johansson, G. Johansson, C.M. Wilson, F. Nori, Dynamical Casimir effect in superconducting microwave circuits, Phys. Rev. A 82, 052509 (2010). C.M. Wilson, G. Johansson, A. Pourkabirian, J.R. Johansson, T. Duty, F. Nori, P. Delsing, Observation of the Dynamical Casimir Effect in a superconducting circuit. Nature, in press (Nov. 2011). P.D. Nation, J.R. Johansson, M.P. Blencowe, F. Nori, Stimulating uncertainty: Amplifying the quantum vacuum with superconducting circuits, Rev. Mod. Phys., in press (2011). J.Q. You, F. Nori, Atomic physics and quantum optics using superconducting circuits, Nature 474, 589 (2011). S.N. Shevchenko, S. Ashhab, F. Nori, Landau-Zener-Stuckelberg interferometry, Phys. Reports 492, 1 (2010). I. Buluta, S. Ashhab, F. Nori. Natural and artificial atoms for quantum computation, Reports on Progress in Physics 74, 104401 (2011). I.Buluta, F. Nori, Quantum Simulators, Science 326, 108 (2009). L.F. Wei, K. Maruyama, X.B. Wang, J.Q. You, F. Nori, Testing quantum contextuality with macroscopic superconducting circuits, Phys. Rev. B 81, 174513 (2010). J.Q. You, X.-F. Shi, X. Hu, F. Nori, Quantum emulation of a spin system with topologically protected ground states using superconducting quantum circuit, Phys. Rev. A 81, 063823 (2010).

Kurokawa, Hodaka, Yamamoto, Moyuki, Sekiguchi, Yuhei +1 more

Quantum communication between remote superconducting systems is being studied intensively to increase the number of integrated superconducting qubits and to realize a distributed quantum computer. Since optical photons must be used for communication outside a dilution refrigerator, the direct conversion of microwave photons to optical photons has been widely investigated. However, the direct conversion approach suffers from added photon noise, heating due to a strong optical pump, and the requirement for large cooperativity. Instead, for quantum communication between superconducting qubits, we propose an entanglement distribution scheme using a solid-state spin quantum memory that works as an interface for both microwave and optical photons. The quantum memory enables quantum communication without significant heating inside the refrigerator, in contrast to schemes using high-power optical pumps. Moreover, introducing the quantum memory naturally makes it possible to herald entanglement and parallelization using multiple memories.

Barry C. Sanders, Dmitry N. Chigrin