Quantum transducers that can convert quantum signals from the microwave to the optical domain are a crucial optical interface for quantum information technology. Coherent microwave-to-optics conversions have been realized with various physical platforms, but all of them are limited to low efficiencies of less than 50\%, the threshold of the no-cloning quantum regime. Here we report a coherent microwave-to-optics transduction using Rydberg atoms and off-resonant scattering technique with an efficiency of 82±2% and a bandwidth of about 1 MHz. The high conversion efficiency is maintained for microwave photons range from thousands to about 50, suggesting that our transduction is readily applicable to the single-photon level. Without requiring cavities or aggressive cooling to quantum ground states, our results would push atomic transducers closer to practical applications in quantum technologies.
@article{arxiv.2203.04178,
title = {High efficiency coherent microwave-to-optics conversion via off-resonant scattering},
author = {Hai-Tao Tu and Kai-Yu Liao and Zuan-Xian Zhang and Xiao-Hong Liu and Shun-Yuan Zheng and Shu-Zhe Yang and Xin-Ding Zhang and Hui Yan and Shi-Liang Zhu},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2203.04178},
year = {2022}
}