Bi-stability in a Mesoscopic Josephson Junction Array Resonator

  1. P.R. Muppalla,
  2. O. Gargiulo,
  3. S.I. Mirzaei,
  4. B. Prasanna Venkatesh,
  5. M.L. Juan,
  6. L. Grünhaupt,
  7. I.M. Pop,
  8. and G. Kirchmair
We present an experimental investigation of the switching dynamics of a stochastic bistability in a 1000 Josephson junctions array resonator with a resonance frequency in the GHz range.
As the device is in the regime where the anharmonicity is on the order of the linewidth, the bistability appears for a drive strength of only a few photons. We measure the dynamics of the bistability by continuously observing the jumps between the two metastable states, which occur with a rate ranging from a few Hz down to a few mHz. The switching rate strongly depends on the drive strength, pump strength and the temperature, following Kramer’s law. The interplay between nonlinearity and coupling, in this little explored regime, could provide a new resource for nondemolition measurements, single photon switches or even elements for autonomous quantum error correction.