Cavity-induced ATS effect on a superconducting Xmon qubit

We couple a ladder-type three-level superconducting artificial atom to a cavity. Adjusting the artificial atom to make the cavity be resonant with the two upper levels, we then probe the lower two levels of the artificial atom. When driving the cavity to a coherent state, the probe spectrum shows energy level splitting induced by the quantized electromagnetic field in the cavity. This splitting size is related to the coupling strength between the cavity and the artificial atom and, thus, is fixed after the sample is fabricated. This is in contrast to the classical Autler-Townes splitting of a three-level system in which the splitting is proportional to the driving amplitude, which can be continuously changed. Our experiment results show the difference between the classical microwave driving field and the quantum field of the cavity.

Observation of the exceptional point in superconducting qubit with dissipation controlled by parametric modulation

Open physical systems described by the non-Hermitian Hamiltonian with parity-time-reversal(PT)symmetry show peculiar phenomena,such as the presence of an exceptional point(EP)at which the PT symmetry is broken and two resonant modes of the Hamiltonian become degenerate.Near the EP,the system could be more sensitive to external perturbations and this may lead to enhanced sensing.In this paper,we present experimental results on the observation of PT symmetry broken transition and the EP using a tunable superconducting qubit.The quantum system of investigation is formed by the two levels of the qubit and the energy loss of the system to the environment is controlled by a method of parametric modulation of the qubit frequency.This method is simple with no requirements for additional elements or qubit device modifications.We believe it can be easily implemented on multi-qubit devices that would be suitable for further exploration of non-Hermitian physics in more complex and diverse systems.

Hardware for multi-superconducting qubit control and readout

We have developed an electronic hardware system for the control and readout of multi-superconducting qubit devices.The hardware system is based on the design ideas of good scalability,high synchronization and low latency.The system,housed inside a VPX-6U chassis,includes multiple arbitrary-waveform generator(AWG)channels,analog-digital-converter(ADC)channels as well as direct current source channels.The system can be used for the control and readout of up to twelve superconducting transmon qubits in one chassis,and control and readout of more and more qubit can be carried out by interconnecting the chassis.By using field programmable gate array(FPGA)processors,the system incorporates three features that are specifically useful for superconducting qubit research.Firstly,qubit signals can be processed using the on-board FPGA after being acquired by ADCs,significantly reducing data processing time and data amount for storage and transmission.Secondly,different output modes,such as direct output and sequential output modes,of AWG can be implemented with pre-encoded FPGA.Thirdly,with data acquisition ADCs and control AWGs jointly controlled by the same FPGA,the feedback latency can be reduced,and in our test a 178.4 ns latency time is realized.This is very useful for future quantum feedback experiments.Finally,we demonstrate the functionality of the system by applying the system to the control and readout of a 10 qubit superconducting quantum processor.

Modulation of energy spectrum and control of coherent microwave transmission at single-photon level by longitudinal field in a superconducting quantum circuit

We study the effect of longitudinally applied field modulation on a two-level system using superconducting quantum circuits. The presence of the modulation results in additional transitions and changes the magnitude of the resonance peak in the energy spectrum of the qubit. In particular, when the amplitude ,λz and the frequency COl of the modulation field meet certain conditions, the resonance peak of the qubit disappears. Using this effect, we further demonstrate that the longitudinal field modulation of the Xmon qubit coupled to a one-dimensional transmission line could be used to dynamically control the transmission of single-photon level coherent resonance microwave.

Observation of size-dependent boundary effects in non-Hermitian electric circuits

The non-Hermitian systems with the non-Hermitian skin effect(NHSE)are very sensitive to the imposed boundary conditions and lattice sizes,which lead to size-dependent non-Hermitian skin effects.Here,we report the experimental observation of NHSE with different boundary conditions and different lattice sizes in the unidirectional hopping model based on a circuit platform.The circuit admittance spectra and corresponding eigenstates are very sensitive to the presence of the boundary.Meanwhile,our experimental results show how the lattice sizes and boundary terms together affect the strength of NHSE.Therefore,our electric circuit provides a good platform to observe size-dependent boundary effects in non-Hermitian systems.

Fabrication of Josephson parameter amplifier and its application in squeezing vacuum fluctuations

Josephson parameter amplifier(JPA)is a microwave signal amplifier device with near-quantum-limit-noise performance.It has important applications in scientific research fields such as quantum computing and dark matter detection.This work reports the fabrication and characterization of broadband JPA devices and their applications in multi-qubit readout and squeezing of vacuum state.We use a process in which transmission lines and electrodes are made of niobium thin film and aluminum Josephson junctions are made by Dolan bridge technique.We believe this process is more convenient than the process we used previously.The whole production process adopts electron beam lithography technology to ensure high structural resolution.The test result shows that the gain value of the manufactured JPA can exceed 15 dB,and the amplification bandwidth is about 400 MHz.The noise temperature is about 400 mK at the working frequency of 6.2 GHz.The devices have been successfully used in experiments involving superconducting multi-qubit quantum processors.Furthermore,the device is applied to squeeze vacuum fluctuations and a squeezing level of 1.635 dB is achieved.