Putting mechanics into circuit quantum electrodynamics

We review the use of mechanical oscillators in circuit quantum electrodynamics. The capacitive coupling of nano-electromechanical systems with quantum bits and superconducting microwave resonators gives rise to a rich quantum physics involving electrons, photons and phonons. We focus in particular on the linear coupling between a mechanical oscillator and a microwave resonator and present the quantum dynamics that stems from the phonotonic Josephson junction. The microwave cavity turns out to be a powerful device to detect quantum phonon states and manipulate entangled states between phonons and photons.     

State tomography of capacitively shunted phase qubits with high fidelity

We introduce a new design concept for superconducting phase quantum bits (qubits) in which we explicitly separate the capacitive element from the Josephson tunnel junction for improved qubit performance. The number of two-level systems that couple to the qubit is thereby reduced by an order of magnitude and the measurement fidelity improves to 90%. This improved design enables the first demonstration of quantum state tomography with superconducting qubits using single-shot measurements.     

Bridge-free fabrication process for Al/AlO_x/Al Josephson junctions

We fabricate different-sized Al/AlO_x/Al Josephson junctions by using a simple bridge-free technique, in which only single-layer E-beam resist polymethyl methacrylate(PMMA) is exposed at low accelerate voltage(below 30 kV) and the size of junction can be varied in a large range. Compared with the bridge technique, this fabrication process is very robust because it can avoid collapsing the bridge during fabrication. This makes the bridge-free technique more popular to meet different requirements for Josephson junction devices especially for superconducting quantum bits.     

Electrically tunable macroscopic quantum tunneling in a graphene-based Josephson junction

Stochastic switching-current distribution in a graphene-based Josephson junction exhibits a crossover from the classical to quantum regime, revealing the macroscopic quantum tunneling of a Josephson phase particle at low temperatures. Microwave spectroscopy measurements indicate a multiphoton absorption process occurring via discrete energy levels in washboard potential well. The crossover temperature for macroscopic quantum tunneling and the quantized level spacing are controlled with the gate voltage, implying its potential application to gate-tunable superconducting quantum bits.     

RF-driven Josephson bifurcation amplifier for quantum measurement

We have constructed a new type of amplifier whose primary purpose is the readout of superconducting quantum bits. It is based on the transition of a rf-driven Josephson junction between two distinct oscillation states near a dynamical bifurcation point. The main advantages of this new amplifier are speed, high sensitivity, low backaction, and the absence of on-chip dissipation. Pulsed microwave reflection measurements on nanofabricated Al junctions show that actual devices attain the performance predicted by theory.     

Decoherence in Josephson qubits from dielectric loss

Dielectric loss from two-level states is shown to be a dominant decoherence source in superconducting quantum bits. Depending on the qubit design, dielectric loss from insulating materials or the tunnel junction can lead to short coherence times. We show that a variety of microwave and qubit measurements are well modeled by loss from resonant absorption of two-level defects. Our results demonstrate that this loss can be significantly reduced by using better dielectrics and fabricating junctions of small area . With a redesigned phase qubit employing low-loss dielectrics, the energy relaxation rate has been improved by a factor of 20, opening up the possibility of multiqubit gates and algorithms.     

Superconducting single-charge transistor in a tunable dissipative environment

We study a superconducting single-charge transistor, where the coherence of Cooper pair tunneling is destroyed by the coupling to a tunable dissipative environment. Sequential tunneling and cotunneling processes are analyzed to construct the shape of the conductance peaks and their dependence on the dissipation and temperature. Unexpected features are found due to a crossover between two distinct regimes, one "environment assisted" the other "environment dominated." Several of the predictions have been confirmed by recent experiments. The model and results apply also to the dynamics of Josephson junction quantum bits on a conducting ground plane, thus explaining the influence of dissipation on the coherence.     

中国超导电子学研究及应用进展

超导体的发现距今已有近110年了,高温超导体的发现也已经有30多年了.超导材料的电子学应用在最近一二十年取得了突破性进展.高温超导微波器件显示了比传统微波器件更优越的性能,已经在移动通信、雷达和一些特殊通信系统中取得了规模化应用.超导量子干涉器件以其磁场和电流测量的超高灵敏度,成为地质勘探、磁共振成像和生物磁成像等领域不可替代的手段.包括超导隧道结混频器、超导热电子混频器、超导转变沿探测器及超导单光子探测器等在内的超导传感器/探测器可以探测全波段的电磁波及各种宇宙辐射,具有接近量子极限的超高灵敏度,在地球物理、天体物理、量子信息技术、材料科学及生物医学等众多前沿领域发挥越来越重要的作用.超导参量放大器已经成为实现超导量子计算的关键器件.超导集成电路技术已被列入国际器件与系统技术路线图,成为后摩尔时代微电子领域的前沿阵地之一.在计量科学中,超导约瑟夫森效应及约瑟夫森结阵器件被广泛应用于量子电压基准和国际单位制基本单位的重新定义中.在当前的量子信息技术热潮中,超导电子学扮演重要角色,同时量子热潮也大力推动了超导电子学的发展.本文主要对近几年我国超导电子学研究和应用的现状与进展进行概括总结.     

Electron Spins in Quantum Dots as Quantum Bits

The creation, coherent manipulation, and measurement of spins in nanostructures open up completely new possibilities for electronics and information processing, among them quantum computing and quantum communication. We review our theoretical proposal for using electron spins in quantum dots as quantum bits, explaining why this scheme satisfies all the essential requirements for quantum computing. We include a discussion of the recent measurements of surprisingly long spin coherence times in semiconductors. Quantum gate mechanisms in laterally and vertically tunnel-coupled quantum dots and methods for single-spin measurements are introduced. We discuss detection and transport of electronic EPR pairs in normal and superconducting systems.     

Junction of three off-critical quantum Ising chains and two-channel Kondo effect in a superconductor

We show that a junction of three off-critical quantum Ising chains can be regarded as a quantum spin chain realization of the two-channel spin-1/2 overscreened Kondo effect with two superconducting leads. We prove that, as long as the Kondo temperature is larger than the superconducting gap, the equivalent Kondo model flows towards the two channel Kondo fixed point. We argue that our system provides the first controlled realization of two channel Kondo effect with superconducting leads. Besides its theoretical interest, this result is of importance for potential applications to a number of contexts, including the analysis of the quantum entanglement properties of a Kondo system.     

Phonon squeezing in a superconducting molecular transistor

Josephson transport through a single molecule or carbon nanotube is considered in the presence of a local vibrational mode coupled to the electronic charge. The ground-state solution is obtained exactly in the limit of a large superconducting gap and is extended by variational analysis. The Josephson current induces squeezing of the phonon mode, which is controlled by the superconducting phase difference and by the junction asymmetry. Optical probes of nonclassical phonon states are briefly discussed.     

基于约瑟夫森器件的超导量子比特

超导量子比特利用了超导约瑟夫森隧道结的非线性效应,采用了半导体集成电路的工艺,以其无能耗,大设计加工自由度,易规模化等优点而倍受注目。本文对超导量子比特的基本原理及发展过程作了简要综述。首先简要回顾了量子计算的历史,然后介绍了超导量子比特的设计及其调控,并对各种超导量子比特的消相干进行了讨论。     

Andreev quantum dots for spin manipulation

We investigate the feasibility of manipulating individual spin in a superconducting junction where Bogoliubov quasiparticles can be trapped in discrete Andreev levels. We call this system an Andreev quantum dot (AQD) to be contrasted with a common semiconductor quantum dot. We show that the AQD can be brought into a spin-1/2 state. The coupling between the spin and superconducting current facilitates manipulation and measurement of this state. We demonstrate that one can operate two inductively coupled AQDs as a XOR gate; this enables quantum computing applications.     

NMR-like control of a quantum bit superconducting circuit

Coherent superpositions of quantum states have already been demonstrated in different superconducting circuits based on Josephson junctions. These circuits are now considered for implementing quantum bits. We report on experiments in which the state of a qubit circuit, the quantronium, is efficiently manipulated using methods inspired from nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR): multipulse sequences are used to perform arbitrary operations, to improve their accuracy, and to fight decoherence.     

Quantum theory of cavity-assisted sideband cooling of mechanical motion

We present a quantum-mechanical theory of the cooling of a cantilever coupled via radiation pressure to an illuminated optical cavity. Applying the quantum noise approach to the fluctuations of the radiation pressure force, we derive the optomechanical cooling rate and the minimum achievable phonon number. We find that reaching the quantum limit of arbitrarily small phonon numbers requires going into the good-cavity (resolved phonon sideband) regime where the cavity linewidth is much smaller than the mechanical frequency and the corresponding cavity detuning. This is in contrast to the common assumption that the mechanical frequency and the cavity detuning should be comparable to the cavity damping.     

Quantum Superposition of Two Coherent States in a Mesoscopic Josephson Junction

We study a mesoscopic Josephson junction in a circular superconducting ring which encloses a magneto static flux. It is shown that with the junction being initially prepared in vacuum state, the state of the junction can evolve into a quantum superposition of two coherent states.     

Quantum tunneling between paramagnetic and superconducting states of a nanometer-scale superconducting grain placed in a magnetic field

We consider the process of quantum tunneling between the superconducting and paramagnetic states of a nanometer-scale superconducting grain placed in a magnetic field. The grain is supposed to be weakly coupled to a normal metallic contact that plays the role of the spin reservoir. Using the instanton method, we find the probability of the quantum tunneling process and express it in terms of the applied magnetic field, order parameter of the superconducting grain, and conductance of the tunneling junction between the grain and metallic contact.     

Surface optical phonon—assisted electron Raman scattering in a semiconductor quantum disc

We have carried out a theoretical calculation of the differential cross section for the electron Raman scattering process associated with the surface optical phonon modes in a semiconductor quantum disc.electron states are considered to be confined within a quantum disc with infinite potential barriers.The optical phonon modes we have adopted are the slab phonon modes by taking into consideration the Frohlich interaction between an electron and a phonon.The selection rules for the Raman process are given.Numerical results and a discussion are also presented for various radii and thicknesses of the disc,and different incident radiation energies.     

Quantum phase transition and Coulomb blockade with one-dimensional SQUID arrays

We report on experiments with one-dimensional (1D) arrays of small-capacitance superconducting quantum interference devices (SQUIDs), where an external magnetic field can be used to tune in situ the Josephson coupling between neighboring superconducting electrodes. We have studied the superconductor–insulator transition in such arrays, and have also used these arrays to bias a single Josephson junction. In the later experiment, we have observed a clear Coulomb blockade of Cooper-pair tunnelling (CBCPT) in the single junction.     

Superconducting quantum bits

Superconducting quantum bits(qubits) and circuits are the leading candidate for the implementation of solid-state quantum computation. They have also been widely used in a variety of studies of quantum physics, atomic physics, quantum optics, and quantum simulation. In this article, we will present an overview of the basic principles of the superconducting qubits, including the phase, flux, charge, and transmon(Xmon) qubits, and the progress achieved so far concerning the improvements of the device design and quantum coherence property. Experimental studies in various research fields using the superconducting qubits and circuits will be briefly reviewed.