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Optics Express

Topologically protected chainwise microwave-to-optical photon conversion interfaced by nitrogen-vacancy center ensembles

Tong-Tong Zhang, Jin‐Lei Wu, Yan Wang, Shi‐Lei Su, Chongxin Shan

Published Sep 30, 2025• 1 citation
Publisher

Abstract

The pumped Su-Schrieffer-Heeger (SSH) model has been extensively employed for robust quantum state transfer (QST) due to its topologically protected edge channels that exhibit intrinsic resilience against local perturbations. Hybrid quantum systems have garnered significant research interest due to their unique capacity to collect distinct advantageous features that are inherently incompatible within individual physical platforms. Here, we propose a topological QST protocol for microwave (MW)-to-optical photon conversion in a synthesized SSH chain of a hybrid system. The topological structure is constructed by connecting superconducting resonators with optical cavities through interfaces of nitrogen-vacancy center ensembles. More importantly, we shorten the duration threshold of adiabatic evolution through power-law coupling engineering, and provide favorable conditions for high-efficiency MW-to-optical photon conversion, which significantly improves the scalability of the transducer with respect to both the system size and the number of converted photons. This approach paves the way for establishing high-efficiency quantum interfaces between localized MW quantum circuits and optical fiber networks, which is essential for long-distance quantum communication and distributed quantum computing.

DOI
10.1364/oe.568261

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The pumped Su-Schrieffer-Heeger (SSH) model has been extensively employed for robust quantum state transfer (QST) due to its topologically protected edge channels that exhibit intrinsic resilience against local perturbations. Hybrid quantum systems have garnered significant research interest due to their unique capacity to collect distinct advantageous features that are inherently incompatible within individual physical platforms. Here, we propose a topological QST protocol for microwave (MW)-to-optical photon conversion in a synthesized SSH chain of a hybrid system. The topological structure is constructed by connecting superconducting resonators with optical cavities through interfaces of nitrogen-vacancy center ensembles. More importantly, we shorten the duration threshold of adiabatic evolution through power-law coupling engineering, and provide favorable conditions for high-efficiency MW-to-optical photon conversion, which significantly improves the scalability of the transducer with respect to both the system size and the number of converted photons. This approach paves the way for establishing high-efficiency quantum interfaces between localized MW quantum circuits and optical fiber networks, which is essential for long-distance quantum communication and distributed quantum computing.
In quantum networks, robust and efficient frequency conversions of photons between microwave (MW) and optical regimes serve as a critical interface bridging superconducting quantum processors and optical communication channels. Recently, a topologically protected paradigm of state transfers, based on the topological nature of quantized light in Fock-state lattices (FSLs), has been demonstrated by a superconducting quantum circuit. However, its extension to quantum networks remains unexplored. Here we develop a topological single-photon MW–optics interface based on FSLs with a single nitrogen-vacancy (NV) center spin embedded in a photonic crystal cavity (PCC). The NV spin mediates the effective strong coupling between the optical PCC mode and a superconducting MW resonator via the adiabatic elimination of an intermediate acoustic mode. This scheme establishes a hybrid MW-NV-optics two-mode Jaynes-Cummings model, yielding a topological FSL. Under the significant constraint of optical mode decay, numerical simulations reveal that the MW-to-optics conversion efficiency can exceed 26% for an input five-photon MW Fock state. This work establishes a topological paradigm for hybrid quantum transduction, offering an efficient solid-state framework for constructing large-scale quantum networks.
We propose a topological transport platform for microwave-to-optical conversion at the single-photon level in a Rydberg atom-cavity setting. This setting leverages a hybrid dual-mode Jaynes-Cummings (JC) configuration, where a microwave resonator couples an optical cavity mediated by a Rydberg atom ensemble. Our scheme uniquely enables the formation of Fock-state lattices (FSLs), where photon hopping rates depend on photon numbers in individual sites. We identify an inherent zero-energy mode corresponding to the dark state of the dual-mode JC model. This enables to build a high-efficiency single-photon transducer, which realizes topologically protected photon transport between the microwave and optical modes. Crucially, we show analytically that the FSL features continuous variations of the winding number. Our work establishes a robust mechanism for efficient quantum transduction in synthetic dimensions and opens avenues for exploring topological physics with continuous winding numbers in the atom-cavity system.
Long-distance transmission between spatially separated microwave cavities is a crucial area of quantum information science and technology. In this work, we present a method for achieving long-distance transmission of arbitrary quantum states between two microwave cavities, by using a hybrid system that comprises two microwave cavities, two nitrogen-vacancy center ensembles (NV ensembles), two optical cavities, and an optical fiber. Each NV ensemble serves as a quantum transducer, dispersively coupling with a microwave cavity and an optical cavity, which enables the conversion of quantum states between a microwave cavity and an optical cavity. The optical fiber acts as a connector between the two optical cavities. Numerical simulations demonstrate that our method allows for the transfer of an arbitrary photonic qubit state between two spatially separated microwave cavities with high fidelity. Furthermore, the method exhibits robustness against environmental decay, parameter fluctuations, and additive white Gaussian noise. Our approach offers a promising way for achieving long-distance transmission of quantum states between two spatially separated microwave cavities, which may have practical applications in networked large-scale quantum information processing and quantum communication.
Quantum conversion between microwave and optical photons is an important area of quantum information science and technology. Here we propose a one-step method to realize a coherent conversion between a microwave cavity and an optical cavity utilizing a nitrogen-vacancy center ensemble (NV ensemble). An NV ensemble considered here acts as a quantum transducer, dispersively coupled to the microwave and optical cavities, enabling transfer of the quantum state and generating entangled states between microwave and optical cavities. With state-of-the-art technology, the numerical simulation is performed to demonstrate that cat states and Fock states can be high-fidelity transferred and a maximally entangled state can be efficiently synthesized between microwave and optical cavities.
The Su–Schrieffer–Heeger (SSH) model, commonly used for robust state transfers through topologically protected edge pumping, has been generalized and exploited to engineer diverse functional quantum devices. Here, we propose to realize a fast topological beam splitter based on a generalized SSH model by accelerating the quantum state transfer (QST) process essentially limited by adiabatic requirements. The scheme involves delicate orchestration of the instantaneous energy spectrum through exponential modulation of nearest neighbor coupling strengths and onsite energies, yielding a significantly accelerated beam splitting process. Due to properties of topological pumping and accelerated QST, the beam splitter exhibits strong robustness against parameter disorders and losses of system. In addition, the model demonstrates good scalability and can be extended to two-dimensional crossed-chain structures to realize a topological router with variable numbers of output ports. Our work provides practical prospects for fast and robust topological QST in feasible quantum devices in large-scale quantum information processing.
We propose an efficient scheme for a coherent quantum interface between microwave and optical photons using nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centers in diamond. In this setup, an NV center ensemble is simultaneously coupled to an optical and a microwave cavity. We show that, by using the collective spin excitation modes as an intermediary, quantum states can be transferred between the microwave cavity and the optical cavity through either a double-swap scheme or a dark-state protocol. This hybrid quantum interface may provide interesting applications in single microwave photon detections or quantum information processing.