Electron shelving of a superconducting artificial atom
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ABSTRACT: Interfacing long-lived qubits with propagating photons is a fundamental challenge in quantum technology. Cavity and circuit quantum electrodynamics (cQED) architectures rely on an off-resonant cavity, which blocks the qubit emission and enables a quantum non-demolition (QND) dispersive readout. However, no such buffer mode is necessary for controlling a large class of three-level systems that combine a metastable qubit transition with a bright cycling transition, using the electron shelving effect. Here we demonstrate shelving of a circuit atom, fluxonium, placed inside a microwave waveguide. With no cavity modes in the setup, the qubit coherence time exceeds 50 μs, and the cycling transition’s radiative lifetime is under 100 ns. By detecting a homodyne fluorescence signal from the cycling transition, we implement a QND readout of the qubit and account for readout errors using a minimal optical pumping model. Our result establishes a resource-efficient (cavityless) alternative to cQED for controlling superconducting qubits. Existing schemes for coherent control and measurements in superconducting circuits rely on the coupling between superconducting qubits and cavity photons. Here the authors implement conditional fluorescence readout of a fluxonium qubit placed inside an open waveguide, with no coupling to cavity modes.
SUBMITTER: Cottet N
PROVIDER: S-EPMC8569191 | biostudies-literature |
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
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