Integrated and DC-powered superconducting microcomb

Frequency combs, specialized laser sources emitting multiple equidistant frequency lines, have revolutionized science and technology with unprecedented precision and versatility. Recently, integrated frequency combs are emerging as scalable solutions for on-chip photonics. Here, we demonstrate a fully integrated superconducting microcomb that is easy to manufacture, simple to operate, and consumes ultra-low power. Our turnkey apparatus comprises a basic nonlinear superconducting device, a Josephson junction, directly coupled to a superconducting microstrip resonator. We showcase coherent comb generation through self-started mode-locking. Therefore, comb emission is initiated solely by activating a DC bias source, with power consumption as low as tens of picowatts. The resulting comb spectrum resides in the microwave domain and spans multiple octaves. The linewidths of all comb lines can be narrowed down to 1 Hz through a unique coherent injection-locking technique. Our work represents a critical step towards fully integrated microwave photonics and offers the potential for integrated quantum processors.

Latched detection of zeptojoule spin echoes with a kinetic inductance parametric oscillator

When strongly pumped at twice their resonant frequency, nonlinear resonators develop a high-amplitude intracavity field, a phenomenon known as parametric self-oscillations. The boundary over which this instability occurs can be extremely sharp and thereby presents an opportunity for realizing a detector. Here, we operate such a device based on a superconducting microwave resonator whose nonlinearity is engineered from kinetic inductance. The device indicates the absorption of low-power microwave wavepackets by transitioning to a self-oscillating state. Using calibrated pulses, we measure the detection efficiency to zeptojoule energy wavepackets. We then apply it to measurements of electron spin resonance, using an ensemble of 209Bi donors in silicon that are inductively coupled to the resonator. We achieve a latched readout of the spin signal with an amplitude that is five hundred times greater than the underlying spin echoes.

Broadband Tunable Infrared Light Emission from Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor Tunnel Junctions in Silicon Photonics

Broadband near-infrared light emitting tunnel junctions are demonstrated with efficient coupling to a silicon photonic waveguide. The metal oxide semiconductor devices show long hybrid photonic-plasmonic mode propagation lengths of approximately 10 μm and thus can be integrated into an overcoupled resonant cavity with quality factor Q ≈ 49, allowing for tens of picowatt near-infrared light emission coupled directly into a waveguide. The electron inelastic tunneling transition rate and the cavity mode density are modeled, and the transverse magnetic (TM) hybrid mode excitation rate is derived. The results coincide well with polarization resolved experiments. Additionally, current-stressed devices are shown to emit unpolarized light due to radiative recombination inside the silicon electrode.

Quasiparticle Poisoning of Superconducting Qubits from Resonant Absorption of Pair-Breaking Photons

The ideal superconductor provides a pristine environment for the delicate states of a quantum computer: because there is an energy gap to excitations, there are no spurious modes with which the qubits can interact, causing irreversible decay of the quantum state. As a practical matter, however, there exists a high density of excitations out of the superconducting ground state even at ultralow temperature; these are known as quasiparticles. Observed quasiparticle densities are of order 1  μm^{-3}, tens of orders of magnitude greater than the equilibrium density expected from theory. Nonequilibrium quasiparticles extract energy from the qubit mode and can induce dephasing. Here we show that a dominant mechanism for quasiparticle poisoning is direct absorption of high-energy photons at the qubit junction. We use a Josephson junction-based photon source to controllably dose qubit circuits with millimeter-wave radiation, and we use an interferometric quantum gate sequence to reconstruct the charge parity of the qubit. We find that the structure of the qubit itself acts as a resonant antenna for millimeter-wave radiation, providing an efficient path for photons to generate quasiparticles. A deep understanding of this physics will pave the way to realization of next-generation superconducting qubits that are robust against quasiparticle poisoning.

Coherent Microwave Emission of Gain-Driven Polaritons

By developing a gain-embedded cavity magnonics platform, we create a gain-driven polariton (GDP) that is activated by an amplified electromagnetic field. Distinct effects of gain-driven light-matter interaction, such as polariton auto-oscillations, polariton phase singularity, self-selection of a polariton bright mode, and gain-induced magnon-photon synchronization, are theoretically studied and experimentally manifested. Utilizing the gain-sustained photon coherence of the GDP, we demonstrate polariton-based coherent microwave amplification (∼40  dB) and achieve high-quality coherent microwave emission (Q>10^{9}).

Proposal for a continuous wave laser with linewidth well below the standard quantum limit

Due to their high coherence, lasers are ubiquitous tools in science. We show that by engineering the coupling between the gain medium and the laser cavity as well as the laser cavity and the output port, it is possible to eliminate most of the noise due to photons entering as well as leaving the laser cavity. Hence, it is possible to reduce the laser linewidth by a factor equal to the number of photons in the laser cavity below the standard quantum limit. We design and theoretically analyze a superconducting circuit that uses Josephson junctions, capacitors and inductors to implement a microwave laser, including the low-noise couplers that allow the design to surpass the standard quantum limit. Our proposal relies on the elements of superconducting quantum information, and thus is an example of how quantum engineering techniques can inspire us to re-imagine the limits of conventional quantum systems.

Extreme Frequency Conversion from Soliton Resonant Interactions

We present a metastructure architecture with a bistable microstructure that enables extreme broadband frequency conversion. We use numerical and experimental tools to unveil the relationship between input excitations at the unit cell level and output responses at the macrostructural level. We identify soliton-lattice mode resonances resulting in input-independent energy transfer into desired metabeam vibration modes as long as transition waves are triggered within the metastructure. We observe both low-to-high and high-to-low incommensurate frequency interactions in the metabeams, thus enabling energy exchange between bands 2 orders of magnitude apart. This behavior generalizes fluxon-cavity mode resonance in superconducting electronics, providing a general method to extreme frequency conversion in mechanics. Importantly, the introduced architecture allows for expanding the metamaterials design paradigm by fundamentally breaking the dependence of macroscopic dynamics on the unit cell properties. The resulting input-independent nature implies potential applications in broadband frequency regulation and energy transduction.

AFM Analysis of Micron and Sub-Micron Sized Bridges Fabricated Using the Femtosecond Laser on YBCO Thin Films

The research arose as a result of the need to use the femtosecond laser to fabricate sub-micron and nano-sized bridges that could be analyzed for the Josephson effect. The femtosecond laser has a low pulse duration of 130 femtoseconds. Hence in an optical setup it was assumed that it could prevent the thermal degradation of the superconductive material during fabrication. In this paper a series of micron and sub-micron sized bridges where fabricated on superconductive yttrium barium copper oxide (YBCO) thin film using the femtosecond laser, a spherical convex lens of focal length 30 mm and the G-code control programming language applied to a translation stage. The dimensions of the bridges fabricated where analyzed using the atomic force microscope (AFM). As a result, micron sized superconductive bridges of width 1.68 μm, 1.39 μm, 1.23 μm and sub-micron sized bridges of width 858 nm, 732 nm where fabricated. The length of this bridges ranged from 9.6 μm to 12.8 μm. The femtosecond laser technique and the spherical convex lens can be used to fabricate bridges in the sub-micron dimension.

Magnitude and Spatial Distribution Control of the Supercurrent in Bi2O2Se-Based Josephson Junction

Many proposals for exploring topological quantum computation are based on superconducting quantum devices constructed on materials with strong spin-orbit coupling (SOC). For these devices, full control of both the magnitude and the spatial distribution of the supercurrent is highly demanded, but has been elusive up to now. We constructed a proximity-type Josephson junction on nanoplates of Bi₂O₂Se, a new emerging semiconductor with strong SOC. Through electrical gating, we show that the supercurrent can be fully turned ON and OFF, and its real-space pathways can be configured either through the bulk or along the edges. Our work demonstrates Bi₂O₂Se as a promising platform for constructing multifunctional hybrid superconducting devices as well as for searching for topological superconductivity.

Theoretical and experimental study on the electronic and optical properties of K0.5Rb0.5Pb2Br5: a promising laser host material

The data on the electronic structure and optical properties of bromide K_0.5Rb_0.5Pb₂Br₅ achieved by first-principle calculations and verified by X-ray spectroscopy measurements are reported. The kinetic energy, the Coulomb potential induced by the exchange hole, spin-orbital effects, and Coulomb repulsion were taken into account by applying the Tran and Blaha modified Becke–Johnson function (TB-mBJ), Hubbard U parameter, and spin-orbital coupling effect (SOC) in the TB-mBJ + U + SOC technique. The band gap was for the first time defined to be 3.23 eV. The partial density of state (PDOS) curves of K_0.5Rb_0.5Pb₂Br₅ agree well with XES K Ll and Br Kβ₂, and XPS spectra. The valence band (VB) is characterized by the Pb-5d_3/2 and Pb-5d_5/2 sub-states locating in the vicinities of −20 eV and −18 eV, respectively. The VB middle part is mainly formed by K-3p, Rb-4p and Br-4s states, in which the separation of Rb-4p_3/2 and Rb-4p_1/2 was also observed. The strong hybridization of Br-p and Pb-s/p states near −6.5 eV reveals a major covalent part in the Br–Pb bonding. With a large band gap of 3.23 eV, and the remarkably high possibility of inter-band transition in energy ranges of 4–7 eV, and 10–12 eV, the bromide K_0.5Rb_0.5Pb₂Br₅ is expected to be a very promising active host material for core valence luminescence and mid-infrared rare-earth doped laser materials. The anisotropy of optical properties in K_0.5Rb_0.5Pb₂Br₅ is not significant, and it occurs at the extrema in the optical spectra. The absorption coefficient α(ω) is in the order of magnitude of 10⁶ cm⁻¹ for an energy range of 5–25 eV.

The data on the electronic structure and optical properties of bromide K_0.5Rb_0.5Pb₂Br₅ achieved by first-principle calculations and verified by X-ray spectroscopy measurements are reported.

A coherent nanomechanical oscillator driven by single-electron tunnelling

A single-electron transistor embedded in a nanomechanical resonator represents an extreme limit of electron-phonon coupling. While it allows fast and sensitive electromechanical measurements, it also introduces backaction forces from electron tunnelling that randomly perturb the mechanical state. Despite the stochastic nature of this backaction, it has been predicted to create self-sustaining coherent mechanical oscillations under strong coupling conditions. Here, we verify this prediction using real-time measurements of a vibrating carbon nanotube transistor. This electromechanical oscillator has some similarities with a laser. The single-electron transistor pumped by an electrical bias acts as a gain medium and the resonator acts as a phonon cavity. Although the operating principle is unconventional because it does not involve stimulated emission, we confirm that the output is coherent. We demonstrate other analogues of laser behaviour, including injection locking, classical squeezing through anharmonicity, and frequency narrowing through feedback.

Single-Photon Emission Mediated by Single-Electron Tunneling in Plasmonic Nanojunctions

Recent scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) experiments reported single-molecule fluorescence induced by tunneling currents in the nanoplasmonic cavity formed by the STM tip and the substrate. The electric field of the cavity mode couples with the current-induced charge fluctuations of the molecule, allowing the excitation of photons. We investigate theoretically this system for the experimentally relevant limit of large damping rate κ for the cavity mode and arbitrary coupling strength to a single-electronic level. We find that for bias voltages close to the first inelastic threshold of photon emission, the emitted light displays antibunching behavior with vanishing second-order photon correlation function. At the same time, the current and the intensity of emitted light display Franck-Condon steps at multiples of the cavity frequency ω_{c} with a width controlled by κ rather than the temperature T. For large bias voltages, we predict strong photon bunching of the order of κ/Γ where Γ is the electronic tunneling rate. Our theory thus predicts that strong coupling to a single level allows current-driven nonclassical light emission.

Charging of Superconducting Layers in Arrays of Coupled Josephson Junctions for Overcritical Currents

In this work, we effectuated the numerical simulations of the phase dynamics of an array of Josephson junctions taking into account the capacitive coupling between the neighboring junctions and the diffusion current in the stack. We observed that, if we increase the coupling and the dissipation parameters, the IV characteristic changes qualitatively from the IV characteristics studied before. For currents greater than the critical one, we obtained an additional branch in the IV characteristics. This branch is characterized by a lower voltage than the outermost one. Moreover, we obtained an additional charging of the superconducting layers in the IV region for currents greater than the critical one. We studied the time evolution of this charging by the means of Fast Fourier Transform. We proved that the charge density wave associated with this charging has a complex spectral structure. In addition, we analyzed the behavior of the system for different boundary conditions, appropriate to different experimental setups.

Role of Quasiparticles in an Electric Circuit with Josephson Junctions

Although Josephson junctions can be viewed as highly nonlinear impedances for superconducting quantum technologies, they also possess internal dynamics that may strongly affect their behavior. Here, we construct a computational framework that includes a microscopic description of the junction (full fledged treatment of both the superconducting condensate and the quasiparticles) in the presence of a surrounding electrical circuit. Our approach generalizes the standard resistor capacitor Josephson model to arbitrary junctions (including, e.g., multiterminal geometries and/or junctions that embed topological or magnetic elements) and arbitrary electric circuits treated at the classical level. By treating the superconducting condensate and quasiparticles on equal footings, we capture nonequilibrium phenomena such as multiple Andreev reflection. We show that the interplay between the quasiparticle dynamics and the electrical environment leads to the emergence of new phenomena. In a RC circuit connected to single channel Josephson junction, we find out-of-equilibrium current-phase relations that are strongly distorted with respect to the (almost sinusoidal) equilibrium one, revealing the presence of the high harmonic ac Josephson effect. In an RLC circuit connected to a junction, we find that the shape of the resonance is strongly modified by the quasiparticle dynamics: close to resonance, the current can be smaller than without the resonator. Our approach provides a route for the quantitative modeling of superconducting-based circuits.

Antibunched Photons Emitted by a dc-Biased Josephson Junction

We show experimentally that a dc biased Josephson junction in series with a high-enough-impedance microwave resonator emits antibunched photons. Our resonator is made of a simple microfabricated spiral coil that resonates at 4.4 GHz and reaches a 1.97  kΩ characteristic impedance. The second order correlation function of the power leaking out of the resonator drops down to 0.3 at zero delay, which demonstrates the antibunching of the photons emitted by the circuit at a rate of 6×10^{7} photons per second. Results are found in quantitative agreement with our theoretical predictions. This simple scheme could offer an efficient and bright single-photon source in the microwave domain.

Dynamical Glass and Ergodization Times in Classical Josephson Junction Chains

Models of classical Josephson junction chains turn integrable in the limit of large energy densities or small Josephson energies. Close to these limits the Josephson coupling between the superconducting grains induces a short-range nonintegrable network. We compute distributions of finite-time averages of grain charges and extract the ergodization time T_{E} which controls their convergence to ergodic δ distributions. We relate T_{E} to the statistics of fluctuation times of the charges, which are dominated by fat tails. T_{E} is growing anomalously fast upon approaching the integrable limit, as compared to the Lyapunov time T_{Λ}-the inverse of the largest Lyapunov exponent-reaching astonishing ratios T_{E}/T_{Λ}≥10^{8}. The microscopic reason for the observed dynamical glass is rooted in a growing number of grains evolving over long times in a regular almost integrable fashion due to the low probability of resonant interactions with the nearest neighbors. We conjecture that the observed dynamical glass is a generic property of Josephson junction networks irrespective of their space dimensionality.

Microwave emission from superconducting vortices in Mo/Si superlattices

Most of superconductors in a magnetic field are penetrated by a lattice of quantized flux vortices. In the presence of a transport current causing the vortices to cross sample edges, emission of electromagnetic waves is expected due to the continuity of tangential components of the fields at the surface. Yet, such a radiation has not been observed so far due to low radiated power levels and lacking coherence in the vortex motion. Here, we clearly evidence the emission of electromagnetic waves from vortices crossing the layers of a superconductor/insulator Mo/Si superlattice. The emission spectra consist of narrow harmonically related peaks which can be finely tuned in the GHz range by the dc bias current and, coarsely, by the in-plane magnetic field value. Our findings show that superconductor/insulator superlattices can act as dc-tunable microwave generators bridging the frequency gap between conventional radiofrequency oscillators and (sub-)terahertz generators relying upon the Josephson effect.

Superconducting gatemon qubit based on a proximitized two-dimensional electron gas

The coherent tunnelling of Cooper pairs across Josephson junctions (JJs) generates a nonlinear inductance that is used extensively in quantum information processors based on superconducting circuits, from setting qubit transition frequencies¹ and interqubit coupling strengths² to the gain of parametric amplifiers³ for quantum-limited readout. The inductance is either set by tailoring the metal oxide dimensions of single JJs, or magnetically tuned by parallelizing multiple JJs in superconducting quantum interference devices with local current-biased flux lines. JJs based on superconductor-semiconductor hybrids represent a tantalizing all-electric alternative. The gatemon is a recently developed transmon variant that employs locally gated nanowire superconductor-semiconductor JJs for qubit control^4,5. Here we go beyond proof-of-concept and demonstrate that semiconducting channels etched from a wafer-scale two-dimensional electron gas (2DEG) are a suitable platform for building a scalable gatemon-based quantum computer. We show that 2DEG gatemons meet the requirements⁶ by performing voltage-controlled single qubit rotations and two-qubit swap operations. We measure qubit coherence times up to ~2 μs, limited by dielectric loss in the 2DEG substrate.

GaN/NbN epitaxial semiconductor/superconductor heterostructures

Epitaxy is a process by which a thin layer of one crystal is deposited in an ordered fashion onto a substrate crystal. The direct epitaxial growth of semiconductor heterostructures on top of crystalline superconductors has proved challenging. Here, however, we report the successful use of molecular beam epitaxy to grow and integrate niobium nitride (NbN)-based superconductors with the wide-bandgap family of semiconductors-silicon carbide, gallium nitride (GaN) and aluminium gallium nitride (AlGaN). We apply molecular beam epitaxy to grow an AlGaN/GaN quantum-well heterostructure directly on top of an ultrathin crystalline NbN superconductor. The resulting high-mobility, two-dimensional electron gas in the semiconductor exhibits quantum oscillations, and thus enables a semiconductor transistor-an electronic gain element-to be grown and fabricated directly on a crystalline superconductor. Using the epitaxial superconductor as the source load of the transistor, we observe in the transistor output characteristics a negative differential resistance-a feature often used in amplifiers and oscillators. Our demonstration of the direct epitaxial growth of high-quality semiconductor heterostructures and devices on crystalline nitride superconductors opens up the possibility of combining the macroscopic quantum effects of superconductors with the electronic, photonic and piezoelectric properties of the group III/nitride semiconductor family.

Theory of the Josephson Junction Laser

We develop an analytic theory for the recently demonstrated Josephson junction laser [M. C. Cassidy et al., Science 355, 939 (2017)SCIEAS0036-807510.1126/science.aah6640]. By working in the time-domain representation (rather than the frequency domain), a single nonlinear equation is obtained for the dynamics of the device, which is fully solvable in some regimes of operation. The nonlinear drive is seen to lead to mode-locked output, with a period set by the round-trip time of the resonant cavity.

Observation of microwave absorption and emission from incoherent electron tunneling through a normal-metal-insulator-superconductor junction

We experimentally study nanoscale normal-metal–insulator–superconductor junctions coupled to a superconducting microwave resonator. We observe that bias-voltage-controllable single-electron tunneling through the junctions gives rise to a direct conversion between the electrostatic energy and that of microwave photons. The measured power spectral density of the microwave radiation emitted by the resonator exceeds at high bias voltages that of an equivalent single-mode radiation source at 2.5 K although the phonon and electron reservoirs are at subkelvin temperatures. Measurements of the generated power quantitatively agree with a theoretical model in a wide range of bias voltages. Thus, we have developed a microwave source which is compatible with low-temperature electronics and offers convenient in-situ electrical control of the incoherent photon emission rate with a predetermined frequency, without relying on intrinsic voltage fluctuations of heated normal-metal components or suffering from unwanted losses in room temperature cables. Importantly, our observation of negative generated power at relatively low bias voltages provides a novel type of verification of the working principles of the recently discovered quantum-circuit refrigerator.

Flux-tunable phase shifter for microwaves

We introduce a magnetic-flux-tunable phase shifter for propagating microwave photons, based on three equidistant superconducting quantum interference devices (SQUIDs) on a transmission line. We experimentally implement the phase shifter and demonstrate that it produces a broad range of phase shifts and full transmission within the experimental uncertainty. Together with previously demonstrated beam splitters, this phase shifter can be utilized to implement arbitrary single-qubit gates for qubits based on propagating microwave photons. These results complement previous demonstrations of on-demand single-photon sources and detectors, and hence assist in the pursuit of an all-microwave quantum computer based on propagating photons.

Emission of Nonclassical Radiation by Inelastic Cooper Pair Tunneling

We show that a properly dc-biased Josephson junction in series with two microwave resonators of different frequencies emits photon pairs in the resonators. By measuring auto- and intercorrelations of the power leaking out of the resonators, we demonstrate two-mode amplitude squeezing below the classical limit. This nonclassical microwave light emission is found to be in quantitative agreement with our theoretical predictions, up to an emission rate of 2 billion photon pairs per second.