10-GHz superconducting cavity piezo-optomechanics for microwave-optical photon conversion

  1. Xu Han,
  2. Wei Fu,
  3. Changchun Zhong,
  4. Chang-Ling Zou,
  5. Yuntao Xu,
  6. Ayed Al Sayem,
  7. Mingrui Xu,
  8. Sihao Wang,
  9. Risheng Cheng,
  10. Liang Jiang,
  11. and Hong X. Tang
Coherent photon conversion between microwave and optics holds promise for the realization of distributed quantum networks, in particular, the architecture that incorporates superconducting quantum processors with optical telecommunication channels. High-frequency gigahertz piezo-mechanics featuring low thermal excitations offers an ideal platform to mediate microwave-optical coupling. However, integrating nanophotonic and superconducting circuits at cryogenic temperatures to simultaneously achieve strong photon-phonon interactions remains a tremendous challenge. Here, we report the first demonstration of an integrated superconducting cavity piezo-optomechanical converter where 10-GHz phonons are resonantly coupled with photons in a superconducting microwave and a nanophotonic cavities at the same time. Benefited from the cavity-enhanced interactions, efficient bidirectional microwave-optical photon conversion is realized with an on-chip efficiency of 0.07% and an internal efficiency of 5.8%. The demonstrated superconducting piezo-optomechanical interface makes a substantial step towards quantum communication at large scale, as well as novel explorations in hybrid quantum systems such as microwave-optical photon entanglement and quantum sensing.
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