Nearly quantum-limited microwave amplification via interfering degenerate stimulated emission in a single artificial atom

Fahad Aziz, Kuan-Ting Lin, Ping-Yi Wen, Samina, Yu-Chen Lin, Emely Weigand, Ching-Ping Lee, Yu-Ting Cheng, Yong Lu, Ching-Yeh Chen, Chin-Hsun Chien, Kai-Min Hsieh, Yu-Huan Huang, Haw-Tyng Huang, Hou Ian, Jeng-Chung Chen, Yen-Hsiang Lin, Anton Frisk Kockum

出版日期

March 11, 2025

研究中心

離子阱實驗室

發表資訊

npj Quantum Information volume 11 (2025)

內容目錄

Reaching the quantum limit for added noise in amplification processes is an important step toward many quantum technologies. Nearly quantum-limited traveling-wave parametric amplifiers with Josephson junction arrays have been developed and recently even become commercially available. However, the fundamental question of whether a single atom also can reach this quantum limit has not yet been answered in practice. Here, we investigate the amplification of a microwave probe signal by a superconducting artificial atom, a transmon, at the end of a semi-infinite transmission line, under a strong pump field. The end of the transmission line acts as a mirror for microwave fields. Due to the weak anharmonicity of the artificial atom, the strong pump field creates multi-photon excitations among the dressed states. Transitions between these dressed states, Rabi sidebands, give rise to either amplification or attenuation of the weak probe. We obtain a maximum power amplification of 1.402 ± 0.025, higher than in any previous experiment with a single artificial atom. We achieve near-quantum-limited added noise (0.157 ± 0.003 quanta; the quantum limit is 0.143 ± 0.006 quanta for this level of amplification), due to quantum coherence between Rabi sidebands, leading to constructive interference between emitted photons.