Abstract Coherent quantum transduction between microwave and optical signals is of great importance for long-distance quantum communication. Here we propose a novel scheme for the implementation of nonreciprocal single-photon state conversion between microwave and optical modes based on a hybrid magnonic system. A yttrium–iron–garnet (YIG) sphere with both the optomechanical and the optomagnetic properties is exploited to couple with a three-dimensional superconducting microwave resonator. The magnetostatic mode of the YIG sphere is treated as an intermediate to interact with the microwave and optical modes simultaneously. By manipulating the amplitudes and phase differences between the couplings via external driving fields, we show that the nonreciprocal microwave-light single-photon state conversion can be realized via the quantum interference effect.
Abstract Coherent quantum transduction between microwave and optical signals is of great importance for long-distance quantum communication. Here we propose a novel scheme for the implementation of nonreciprocal single-photon state conversion between microwave and optical modes based on a hybrid magnonic system. A yttrium–iron–garnet (YIG) sphere with both the optomechanical and the optomagnetic properties is exploited to couple with a three-dimensional superconducting microwave resonator. The magnetostatic mode of the YIG sphere is treated as an intermediate to interact with the microwave and optical modes simultaneously. By manipulating the amplitudes and phase differences between the couplings via external driving fields, we show that the nonreciprocal microwave-light single-photon state conversion can be realized via the quantum interference effect.
Abstract A scheme to construct microwave‐to‐optical conversion and amplification using a hybrid cavity optomagnonics system is presented. A yttrium iron garnet (YIG) sphere with nonlinearity couples to optical transverse‐electric (TE) and transverse‐magnetic (TM) whispering gallery modes and a microwave mode. It is shown that the TM classical mode can control the quantum signals input from the microwave mode transmission into the optical TE mode. Due to the nonlinearity of the YIG sphere as well as effective magnon‐optical nondegenerate parametric amplification form interaction, the microwave quantum signals can be amplified and transmitted into the optical TE mode. The current system can function well as a quantum transistor, which is important for constructing a quantum circuit using a cavity optomagnonics system.
We propose a scheme for realizing nonreciprocal bipartite and tripartite entanglement in a hybrid cavity optomagnonic system. The system consists of a tunable Fabry-Perot (FP) cavity and a microwave cavity, an yttrium iron garnet slab (YIG1) and a rotating yttrium iron garnet sphere (YIG2). The magnon modes in both YIG1 and YIG2 are strongly coupled to the microwave cavity mode, and the magnon mode in YIG1 also has a three-mode resonant interaction with the optical modes in the FP cavity. The Barnett effect causes a frequency shift of the magnon mode in YIG2. By reversing the external bias magnetic field of YIG2 to control the sign of the Barnett frequency shift, one can not only switch the entanglement partner of the optical mode between the magnon and microwave modes, but also achieve perfect on-off control of bipartite optical-microwave entanglement and tripartite optical-magnon-microwave entanglement. The study presents a flexible control scheme to realize nonreciprocal bipartite and tripartite entanglement in quantum nodes that integrate diverse physical systems such as optics, magnons, and microwaves, and may have potential applications in entanglement-based quantum networks.
We present an alternative scheme to achieve nonreciprocal unconventional magnon blockade (NUMB) in a hybrid system formed by two microwave cavities and one yttrium iron garnet (YIG) sphere, where the pump and signal cavities interact nonlinearly with each other and the signal cavity is coupled to the YIG sphere. It is found that the nonlinear coupling occurs between the pump cavity and magnon modes due to the dispersive interactions among three bosonic modes. Meanwhile, the Kerr nonlinearity is present in the pump cavity. Based on these nonlinear effects, a nonreciprocal magnon blockade could be achieved with the help of weak parametric driving of the pump cavity. The present work provides an alternative method to prepare single magnon resource, which may be helpful for quantum information processing.
We study the generation of a magnon blockade in a single-crystalline yttrium-iron-garnet (YIG) sphere coupled to a three-dimensional superconducting microwave resonator that interacts with a superconducting qubit. Based on the indirect coupling between the Kittel mode of YIG and the superconducting qubit mediated by the virtual photon excitation in the microwave cavity, we propose two different mechanisms for observing the magnon blockade effect in the ferromagnetic sphere. The first one is to use the strong anharmonicity of the dressed states of the coupled qubit-magnon system. However, the strong magnon antibunching can only be achieved under the strong-coupling regime. To relax this constraint, we propose another quantum interference method to produce and enhance the magnon blockade effect with the moderate-coupling strength. By optimizing the relative phase and the strength ratio of the external driving fields applied to the YIG and qubit, we show that the much stronger magnon antibunching with significantly increased steady-state mean magnon numbers can be realized by the destructive interference for the two-magnon excitation.
We propose a theoretical scheme for the generation of nonreciprocal microwave-optical entanglement in a magnon-based hybrid system where an optical photon in a spinning resonator is coupled to a phonon representing the quantum of the mechanical deformation of a yttrium iron garnet crystal via radiation pressure. Meanwhile, the magnon interacts with the phonon and the microwave through the magnetostrictive and magnetic dipole–dipole interactions, respectively. By spinning the resonator, the light driven in opposite directions propagates irreversibly, which leads to the classical nonreciprocity of mean optical photon numbers. Strikingly, the nonreciprocal entanglement between microwave and optical photons can be generated owing to the Fizeau light-dragging effect. Physically, the magnon–phonon entanglement induced by the magnomechanical parametric downconversion interaction is partially transferred to the microwave-optical subsystem through magnon-microwave and optomechanical state-exchange interactions. Moreover, the nonreciprocity of entanglement can be manipulated by properly choosing various system parameters and the ideal nonreciprocal microwave–optical entanglement could be achieved, in which the entanglement depending on the effective optical detuning is present in a chosen direction but disappears in the other direction. Our work could be applied in the multi-task quantum information processing and construction of chiral quantum networks.
The implementation of quantum network made up of multiple nodes and channels needs to take advantage of hybrid quantum systems. So far, in the hybrid ferromagnet-superconductor quantum system, the establishment of the remote effective interactions based on the virtual photons exchange mediated by the microwave cavity mode has been experimentally confirmed, providing a physical basis for the implementation of the remote signal transfer from one node to another. In this work, we put forward a magnon-based hybrid quantum system consisting of two macroscopic spin subsystems [i.e., millimeter-diameter ferromagnetic yttrium-iron-garnet (YIG) spheres] and one transmon-type superconducting qubit, and show that the mechanism of the cavity-mediated remote magnon-mode intertalk is feasible for achieving microwave signal transfer, simultaneously accompanied by a transition from Poissonian to sub-Poissonian statistics. We find that by tuning the typical system parameters properly, even if there is a mismatch in magnon-mode frequencies or dissipation rates between the two YIG spheres, the microwave information transfer from one YIG sphere to another is still robust, where the signal output through another YIG sphere exhibits pronounced antibunching. In addition, the proposed hybrid quantum system possesses a robustness window against the dissipation rates of both the qubit and the two Kittel modes. The analytical calculations and numerical simulations are conducted under experimentally accessible conditions, and the consistency of the results attained by these two methods makes our research more credible. Physically, we notice that two conversion channels are opened. One channel comes from the linear coupling. The other is based on the nonlinear interaction, which also is the underlying mechanism responsible for nonclassical sub-Poissonian signal output.