3-Wave Mixing Josephson Dipole Element

Parametric conversion and amplification based on three-wave mixing are powerful primitives for efficient quantum operations. For superconducting qubits, such operations can be realized with a quadrupole Josephson junction element, the Josephson Ring Modulator (JRM), which behaves as a loss-less three-wave mixer. However, combining multiple quadrupole elements is a difficult task so it would be advantageous to have a pure three-wave dipole element that could be tessellated for increased power handling and/or information throughput. Here, we present a novel dipole circuit element with third-order nonlinearity, which implements three-wave mixing while minimizing harmful Kerr terms present in the JRM. Experimental results for a non-degenerate amplifier based on the proposed pure third-order nonlinearity are reported.