English

Nearly quantum-limited Josephson-junction Frequency Comb synthesizer

Quantum Physics 2021-04-23 v2 Applied Physics Optics

Abstract

While coherently-driven Kerr microcavities have rapidly matured as a platform for frequency comb formation, such microresonators generally possess weak Kerr coefficients; consequently, triggering comb generation requires millions of photons to be circulating inside the cavity. This suppresses the role of quantum fluctuations in the comb's dynamics. In this paper, we realize a minimal version of coherently-driven Kerr-mediated microwave frequency combs in the circuit QED architecture, where the quantum vacuum's fluctuations are the primary limitation on comb coherence. We achieve a comb phase coherence of up to 35~μ\mus, approaching the theoretical device quantum limit of 55~μ\mus, and vastly longer than the modes' inherent lifetimes of 13~ns. The ability within cQED to engineer stronger nonlinearities than optical microresonators, together with operation at cryogenic temperatures, and excellent agreement of comb dynamics with quantum theory indicates a promising platform for the study of complex dynamics of quantum nonlinear systems

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2005.10193,
  title  = {Nearly quantum-limited Josephson-junction Frequency Comb synthesizer},
  author = {Pinlei Lu and Saeed Khan and Tzu-Chiao Chien and Xi Cao and Olivia T. Lanes and Chao Zhou and Hakan E. Türeci and Michael J. Hatridge},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2005.10193},
  year   = {2021}
}
R2 v1 2026-06-23T15:41:36.623Z