Nonreciprocity is an important property for building interesting and complex quantum systems and for their applications to quantum information processing. In this thesis, we show a low-loss waveguide circulator, a nonreciprocal device, and the understanding about its internal structure as multi-mode hybrid quantum system. Furthermore, we show the circulator integrated with superconducting niobium cavities, and the tunable nonreciprocal interactions between the intra-cavity photons due to coherent coupling to chiral internal modes. %between the intra-cavity photons. which can be presented through effective non-Hermitian dynamics of this system. Based on this platform, we integrate superconducting transmon qubit into the system and explore the nonreciprocal dispersive-type interaction between a transmon qubit and a superconducting cavity, and we introduce a general master-equation model to discribe the observed qubit-cavity dynamics agnostic to the intermediary system. This study demonstrates an example of a new class of quantum nonreciprocal phenomena beyond typical non-Hermitian Hamiltonians and cascaded systems.
Nonreciprocity is an important property for building interesting and complex quantum systems and for their applications to quantum information processing. In this thesis, we show a low-loss waveguide circulator, a nonreciprocal device, and the understanding about its internal structure as multi-mode hybrid quantum system. Furthermore, we show the circulator integrated with superconducting niobium cavities, and the tunable nonreciprocal interactions between the intra-cavity photons due to coherent coupling to chiral internal modes. %between the intra-cavity photons. which can be presented through effective non-Hermitian dynamics of this system. Based on this platform, we integrate superconducting transmon qubit into the system and explore the nonreciprocal dispersive-type interaction between a transmon qubit and a superconducting cavity, and we introduce a general master-equation model to discribe the observed qubit-cavity dynamics agnostic to the intermediary system. This study demonstrates an example of a new class of quantum nonreciprocal phenomena beyond typical non-Hermitian Hamiltonians and cascaded systems.
The dispersive interaction between a qubit and a cavity is ubiquitous in circuit and cavity quantum electrodynamics. It describes the frequency shift of one quantum mode in response to excitations in the other and, in closed systems, is necessarily bidirectional, i.e., reciprocal. Here, we present an experimental study of a nonreciprocal dispersive-type interaction between a transmon qubit and a superconducting cavity, arising from a common coupling to dissipative intermediary modes with broken time reversal symmetry. We characterize the qubit-cavity dynamics, including asymmetric frequency pulls and photon shot noise dephasing, under varying degrees of nonreciprocity by tuning the magnetic field bias of a ferrite component in situ. We introduce a general master equation model for nonreciprocal interactions in the dispersive regime, providing a compact description of the observed qubit-cavity dynamics agnostic to the intermediary system. Our result provides an example of quantum nonreciprocal phenomena beyond the typical paradigms of non-Hermitian Hamiltonians and cascaded systems.
Nonreciprocal interaction between two spatially separated subsystems plays a crucial role in signal processing and quantum networks. Here, we propose an efficient scheme to achieve nonreciprocal interaction and entanglement between two qubits by combining coherent and dissipative couplings in a superconducting platform, where two coherently coupled transmon qubits simultaneously interact with a transmission line waveguide. The coherent interaction between the transmon qubits can be achieved via capacitive coupling or via an intermediary cavity mode, while the dissipative interaction is induced by the transmission line via reservoir engineering. With high tunability of superconducting qubits, their positions along the transmission line can be adjusted to tune the dissipative coupling, enabling to tailor reciprocal and nonreciprocal interactions between the qubits. A unidirectional interaction can be achieved when the separation between the two qubits is ( 4 n + 3 ) λ 0 / 4 , where n is an integer and λ 0 is the photon wavelength. This nonreciprocal interaction enables the generation of nonreciprocal entanglement between the two transmon qubits. Furthermore, applying a drive field to one of the qubits can stabilize the system into a nonreciprocal steady-state entangled state. Remarkably, the nonreciprocal interaction in this work does not rely on the presence of nonlinearity or any explicitly nonreciprocal elements, which has more potential applications in designing nonreciprocal quantum devices, processing quantum information, and building quantum networks.
Ferrite microwave circulators allow one to control the directional flow of microwave signals and noise, and thus play a crucial role in present-day superconducting quantum technology. They are typically viewed as a black-box, and their internal structure is not specified, let alone used as a resource. In this work, we demonstrate a low-loss waveguide circulator constructed with single-crystalline yttrium iron garnet (YIG) in a 3D cavity, and analyze it as a multi-mode hybrid quantum system with coupled photonic and magnonic excitations. We show the coherent coupling of its chiral internal modes with integrated superconducting niobium cavities, and how this enables tunable non-reciprocal interactions between the intra-cavity photons. We also probe experimentally the effective non-Hermitian dynamics of this system and its effective non-reciprocal eigenmodes. The device platform provides a test bed for implementing non-reciprocal interactions in open-system circuit QED.
Losses are ubiquitous in physics and are usually regarded as harmful in quantum information processing. Here, we propose a loss-induced scheme to achieve nonreciprocity and nonreciprocal entanglement in a superconducting platform, where two remote superconducting transmon qubits are connected via two lossy auxiliary cavities. The nonreciprocity in our scheme originates from interference between multiple lossy coupling paths. The coherent phases associated with the qubit-resonator couplings reverse sign under propagation reversal, while the loss-induced phases remain direction independent. Their combined effect leads to different interference conditions in the opposite directions, resulting in unequal effective couplings. We show that this loss-induced scheme can generate nonreciprocal quantum entanglement, indicating that loss can be utilized as a resource. Moreover, the tunability of nonreciprocity and nonreciprocal entanglement in our scheme can be manipulated by the relative phase induced by loss, allowing to tailor both reciprocal and nonreciprocal behaviors. Our results establish a direct link between engineered loss and nonreciprocal entanglement in quantum information processing and offer potential applications in scalable quantum networks.
The dispersive interaction between a qubit and a cavity is ubiquitous in circuit and cavity quantum electrodynamics. It describes the frequency shift of one quantum mode in response to excitations in the other and, in closed systems, is necessarily bidirectional, i.e., reciprocal. Here, we present an experimental study of a nonreciprocal dispersive-type interaction between a transmon qubit and a superconducting cavity, arising from a common coupling to dissipative intermediary modes with broken time reversal symmetry. We characterize the qubit-cavity dynamics, including asymmetric frequency pulls and photon shot noise dephasing, under varying degrees of nonreciprocity by tuning the magnetic field bias of a ferrite component in situ. We introduce a general master equation model for nonreciprocal interactions in the dispersive regime, providing a compact description of the observed qubit-cavity dynamics agnostic to the intermediary system. Our result provides an example of quantum nonreciprocal phenomena beyond the typical paradigms of non-Hermitian Hamiltonians and cascaded systems.
Nanophotonic components allow the control of the flow of light in integrated optical environments. Thereby, the light’s strong confinement leads to an inherent link between its local polarization and propagation direction which fundamentally alters the physics of light-matter interaction and gives rise to phenomena such as directional emission and direction-dependent coupling strengths [1]. I will present the underlying principles of this chiral light-matter interaction and its consequences for integrated applications [1]. In particular, I will show how we employ this effect to control the direction of spontaneous emission [2] and to realize low-loss nonreciprocal transmission at the single-photon level through a silica nanofiber [3]. We use two different approaches where either an ensemble of spin-polarized atoms is weakly coupled to a nanofiber or a single atom is strongly coupled to the nanofiber via a whispering-gallery-mode resonator. The resulting optical isolators show a strong imbalance between the transmissions in forward and reverse direction and, at the same time, a forward transmissions exceeding 70%. We extended this system to a 4-port device, where a single atom routes photons nonreciprocally from one fiber port to the next. This realizes a quantum optical circulator [4] which can even be prepared in a superposition of its operational modes. The demonstrated systems exemplify a new class of (quantum) nanophotonic devices that are ideally suited for photonic quantum information processing and quantum simulation. [1] Nature 541, 473, (2017). [2] Science 346, 67 (2014). [3] Phys. Rev. X 5, 041036 (2015). [4] Science 354, 1577 (2016).