Photons at telecom wavelength are the ideal choice for high density interconnects while solid state qubits in the microwave domain offer strong interactions for fast quantum logic. Here we present a general purpose, quantum-enabled interface between itinerant microwave and optical light. We use a pulsed electro-optic transducer at millikelvin temperatures to demonstrate nanosecond timescale control of the converted complex mode amplitude with an input added noise of Ninoe=0.16−0.01+0.02 (Nineo=1.11−0.07+0.15) quanta for the microwave-to-optics (reverse) direction. Operating with up to unity cooperativity, this work enters the regime of strong coupling cavity quantum electro-optics characterized by unity internal efficiency and nonlinear effects such as the observed laser cooling of a superconducting cavity mode. The high quantum cooperativity of Cq>10 forms the basis for deterministic entanglement generation between superconducting circuits and light.
@article{arxiv.2107.08303,
title = {Quantum-enabled interface between microwave and telecom light},
author = {Rishabh Sahu and William Hease and Alfredo Rueda and Georg Arnold and Liu Qiu and Johannes Fink},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2107.08303},
year = {2022}
}