Latest Papers

The generation and control of quantum states of light constitute fundamental tasks in cavity quantum electrodynamics (QED). The superconducting realization of cavity QED, circuit QED, enables on-chip microwave photonics, where superconducting qubits control and measure individual photon states. A long-standing issue in cavity QED is the coherent transfer of photons between two or more resonators. Here, we use circuit QED to implement a three-resonator architecture on a single chip, where the resonators are interconnected by two superconducting phase qubits. We use this circuit to shuffle one- and two-photon Fock states between the three resonators, and demonstrate qubit-mediated vacuum Rabi swaps between two resonators. This illustrates the potential for using multi-resonator circuits as photon quantum registries and for creating multipartite entanglement between delocalized bosonic modes.

We have performed spectroscopic measurements of a superconducting qubit dispersively coupled to a nonlinear resonator driven by a pump microwave field. Measurements of the qubit frequency shift provide a sensitive probe of the intracavity field, yielding a precise characterization of the resonator nonlinearity. The qubit linewidth has a complex dependence on the pump frequency and amplitude, which is correlated with the gain of the nonlinear resonator operated as a small-signal amplifier. The corresponding dephasing rate is found to be close to the quantum limit in the low-gain limit of the amplifier.

We propose and analyze an interface between a topological qubit and a superconducting flux qubit. In our scheme, the interaction between Majorana fermions in a topological insulator is coherently controlled by a superconducting phase that depends on the quantum state of the flux qubit. A controlled phase gate, achieved by pulsing this interaction on and off, can transfer quantum information between the topological qubit and the superconducting qubit.

Employing the trace distance as a measure for the distinguishability of quantum states, we study the influence of initial correlations on the dynamics of open systems. We concentrate on the Jaynes-Cummings model for which the knowledge of the exact joint dynamics of system and reservoir allows the treatment of initial states with arbitrary correlations. As a measure for the correlations in the initial state we consider the trace distance between the system-environment state and the product of its marginal states. In particular, we examine the correlations contained in the thermal equilibrium state for the total system, analyze their dependence on the temperature and on the coupling strength, and demonstrate their connection to the entanglement properties of the eigenstates of the Hamiltonian. A detailed study of the time dependence of the distinguishability of the open system states evolving from the thermal equilibrium state and its corresponding uncorrelated product state shows that the open system dynamically uncovers typical features of the initial correlations.

We present experimental results on a dispersive scheme for reading out a Josephson phase qubit. A capacitively shunted dc-SQUID is used as a nonlinear resonator which is inductively coupled to the qubit. We detect the flux state of the qubit by measuring the amplitude and phase of a microwave pulse reflected from the SQUID resonator. By this low-dissipative method, we reduce the qubit state measurement time down to 25 microseconds, which is much faster than using the conventional readout performed by switching the SQUID to its non-zero dc voltage state. The demonstrated readout scheme allows for reading out multiple qubits using a single microwave line by employing frequency-division multiplexing.

Superconducting circuit quantum electrodynamics experiments with propagating microwaves require devices acting as beam splitters. Using niobium thin films on silicon and sapphire substrates, we fabricated superconducting 180° microstrip hybrid ring couplers, acting as beam splitters with center frequencies of about 6GHz. For the magnitude of the coupling and isolation we find -3.5+/-0.5dB and at least -15dB, respectively, in a bandwidth of 2GHz. We also investigate the effect of reflections at the superconductor-normal conductor contact by means of low temperature laser scanning microscopy. Our measurements show that our hybrid rings are well suited for on-chip applications in circuit quantum electrodynamics experiments.

We present a superconducting qubit for the circuit quantum electrodynamics architecture that has a tunable coupling strength g. We show that this coupling strength can be tuned from zero to values that are comparable with other superconducting qubits. At g = 0 the qubit is in a decoherence free subspace with respect to spontaneous emission induced by the Purcell effect. Furthermore we show that in the decoherence free subspace the state of the qubit can still be measured by either a dispersive shift on the resonance frequency of the resonator or by a cycling-type measurement.

We propose an architecture based on superconducting qubits and resonators for the implementation of a variety of exotic lattice systems, such as spin and Hubbard models in higher or fractal dimensions and higher-genus topologies. Spin systems are realized naturally using qubits, while superconducting resonators can be used for the realization of Bose-Hubbard models. Fundamental requirements for these designs, such as controllable interactions between arbitrary qubit pairs, have recently been implemented in the laboratory, rendering our proposals feasible with current technology.

We demonstrate experimentally the creation and measurement of an entangled state between a microscopic two level system and a macroscopic superconducting resonator where their indirect interaction is mediated by an artificial atom, a superconducting persistent current qubit (PCQB). We show that the microscopic two level system, formed by a defect in an oxide layer, exhibits an order of magnitude longer dephasing time than the PCQB, while the dephasing time of the entangled states between the microscopic two level system and macroscopic superconducting resonator is significantly longer than the dephasing time in the persistent current qubits. This demonstrates the possibility that a qubit of moderate coherence properties can be used in practice to address low decoherence quantum memories by connecting them to macroscopic circuit QED quantum buses, leading future important implications for quantum information processing tasks.

Motivated by the work [Phys. Rev. Lett. 89, 220404 (2002)] for detecting the vacuum-induced Berry phases with two-mode Jaynes-Cummings models (JCMs), we show here that, for a parameter-dependent single-mode JCM, certain atom-field states also acquire the photon-number-dependent Berry phases after the parameter slowly changed and eventually returned to its initial value. This geometric effect related to the field quantization still exists, even the filed is kept in its vacuum state. Specifically, a feasible Ramsey interference experiment with cavity quantum electrodynamics (QED) system is designed to detect the vacuum-induced Berry phase.

Entanglement evolution of two independent Jaynes-Cummings atoms without rotating-wave approximation (RWA) is studied by an numerically exact approach. The previous results in the RWA are essentially modified in the strong coupling regime ($g\ge 0.1$), which has been reached in the recent experiments on the flux qubit coupled to the LC resonator. For the initial Bell state with anti-correlated spins, the entanglement sudden death (ESD) is absent in the RWA, but does appear in the present numerical calculation without RWA. Aperiodic entanglement evolution in the strong coupling regime is observed. The strong atom-cavity coupling facilitates the ESD. The sign of detuning play a essential role in the entanglement evolution for strong coupling, which is irrelevant in the RWA. An analytical results based on an unitary transformation are also given, which could not modify the RWA picture essentially. It is suggested that the activation of the photons may be the origin of the ESD. The present theoretical results could be applied to artificial atoms realized in recent experiments.

We study the quantum dynamics of a two-level system interacting with a quantized harmonic oscillator in the deep strong coupling regime (DSC) of the Jaynes-Cummings model, that is, when the coupling strength g is comparable or larger than the oscillator frequency w (g/w > 1). In this case, the rotating-wave approximation cannot be applied or treated perturbatively in general. We propose an intuitive and predictive physical frame to describe the DSC regime where photon number wavepackets bounce back and forth along parity chains of the Hilbert space, while producing collapse and revivals of the initial population. We exemplify our physical frame with numerical and analytical considerations in the qubit population, photon statistics, and Wigner phase space.

We introduce a protocol for the fast simulation of $n$-dimensional quantum systems on $n$-qubit quantum computers with tunable couplings. A mapping is given between the control parameters of the quantum computer and the matrix elements of $H_{\rm s}(t)$, an arbitrary, real, time-dependent $n\times n$ dimensional Hamiltonian that is simulated in the $n$-dimensional `single excitation' subspace of the quantum computer. A time-dependent energy/time rescaling minimizes the simulation time on hardware having a fixed coherence time. We demonstrate how three tunably coupled phase qubits simulate a three-channel molecular collision using this protocol, then study the simulation's fidelity as a function of total simulation time.

We study the cavity field's and atomic asymptotic mean excitation numbers due to anti-rotating term (AMENDART) in the circuit Quantum Electrodynamics (circuit QED) system, composed of a two-level atom and a single cavity field mode, subject to Markovian damping and dephasing mechanisms. We show that the AMENDART are above the thermal values, and their behavior is analyzed analytically and numerically for typical parameters in circuit QED implementations described by the Rabi Hamiltonian. We point out that "parasitic elements", such as other cavity modes or eventual off-resonant atoms, also contribute substantially to AMENDART.

We analyze the driven resonantly coupled Jaynes-Cummings model in terms of a quasienergy approach by switching to a frame rotating with the external modulation frequency and by using the dressed atom picture. A quasienergy surface in phase space emerges whose level spacing is governed by a rescaled effective Planck constant. Moreover, the well-known multiphoton transitions can be reinterpreted as resonant tunneling transitions from the local maximum of the quasienergy surface. Most importantly, the driving defines a quasienergy well which is nonperturbative in nature. The quantum mechanical quasienergy state localized at its bottom is squeezed. In the Purcell limited regime, the potential well is metastable and the effective local temperature close to its minimum is uniquely determined by the squeezing factor. The activation occurs in this case via dressed spin flip transitions rather than via quantum activation as in other driven nonlinear quantum systems such as the quantum Duffing oscillator. The local maximum is in general stable. However, in presence of resonant coherent or dissipative tunneling transitions the system can escape from it and a stationary state arises as a statistical mixture of quasienergy states being localized in the two basins of attraction. This gives rise to a resonant or an antiresonant nonlinear response of the cavity at multiphoton transitions. The model finds direct application in recent experiments with a driven superconducting circuit QED setup.

Circuit Quantum Electrodynamics (cQED), the study of the interaction between superconducting circuits behaving as artificial atoms and 1-dimensional transmission-line resonators, has shown much promise for quantum information processing tasks. For the purposes of quantum computing it is usual to approximate the artificial atoms as 2-level qubits, and much effort has been expended on attempts to isolate these qubits from the environment and to invent ever more sophisticated control and measurement schemes. Rather than focussing on these technological aspects of the field, this thesis investigates the opportunities for using these carefully engineered systems for answering questions of fundamental physics.

By modeling the coupling of multiple superconducting qubits to a single cavity in the circuit-quantum electrodynamics (QED) framework we find that it should be possible to observe superradiance and phase multistability using currently available technology. Due to the exceptionally large couplings present in circuit-QED we predict that superradiant microwave pulses should be observable with only a very small number of qubits (just three or four), in the presence of energy relaxation and non-uniform qubit-field coupling strengths. This paves the way for circuit-QED implementations of superradiant state readout and decoherence free subspace state encoding in subradiant states. The system considered here also exhibits phase multistability when driven with large field amplitudes, and this effect may have applications for collective qubit readout and for quantum feedback protocols.

A major challenge in the field of quantum computing is the construction of scalable qubit coupling architectures. Here, we demonstrate a novel tuneable coupling circuit that allows superconducting qubits to be coupled over long distances. We show that the inter-qubit coupling strength can be arbitrarily tuned over nanosecond timescales within a sequence that mimics actual use in an algorithm. The coupler has a measured on/off ratio of 1000. The design is self-contained and physically separate from the qubits, allowing the coupler to be used as a module to connect a variety of elements such as qubits, resonators, amplifiers, and readout circuitry over long distances. Such design flexibility is likely to be essential for a scalable quantum computer.

Minimizing phase and other errors in experimental quantum gates allows higher fidelity quantum processing. To quantify and correct for phase errors in particular, we have developed a new experimental metrology --- amplified phase error (APE) pulses --- that amplifies and helps identify phase errors in general multi-level qubit architectures. In order to correct for both phase and amplitude errors specific to virtual transitions and leakage outside of the qubit manifold, we implement "half derivative" an experimental simplification of derivative reduction by adiabatic gate (DRAG) control theory. The phase errors are lowered by about a factor of five using this method to $\sim 1.6^{\circ}$ per gate, and can be tuned to zero. Leakage outside the qubit manifold, to the qubit $|2\rangle$ state, is also reduced to $\sim 10^{-4}$ for $20\%$ faster gates.

Quantum state detectors based on switching of hysteretic Josephson junctions biased close to their critical current are simple to use but have strong back-action. We show that the back-action of a DC-switching detector can be considerably reduced by limiting the switching voltage and using a fast cryogenic amplifier, such that a single readout can be completed within 25 ns at a repetition rate of 1 MHz without loss of contrast. Based on a sequence of two successive readouts we show that the measurement has a clear quantum non-demolition character, with a QND fidelity of 75 %.