A Cooper-Pair Box Architecture for Cyclic Quantum Heat Engines

  1. Andrew Guthrie,
  2. Christoforus Dimas Satrya,
  3. Yu-Cheng Chang,
  4. Paul Menczel,
  5. Franco Nori,
  6. and Jukka P. Pekola
Here we present an architecture for the implementation of cyclic quantum thermal engines using a superconducting circuit. The quantum engine consists of a gated Cooper-pair box, capacitively coupled to two superconducting coplanar waveguide resonators with different frequencies, acting as thermal baths. We experimentally demonstrate the strong coupling of a charge qubit to two superconducting resonators, with the ability to perform voltage driving of the qubit at GHz frequencies. By terminating the resonators of the measured structure with normal-metal resistors whose temperature can be controlled and monitored, a quantum heat engine or refrigerator could be realized. Furthermore, we numerically evaluate the performance of our setup acting as a quantum Otto-refrigerator in the presence of realistic environmental decoherence.

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