Circuit QED flip-flop memory with all-microwave switching

Microwave electronics constitutes an area of research aimed primarily towards the use of high-speed components and circuits for communication and sensing, while digital logic is difficult to implement with all-microwave technologies. We introduce a microwave driven circuit composed of superconducting resonators and qubits which shows a bistable behaviour, and we present a simple mechanism that allows single- or few-photon microwave pulses to work as Set- and Reset-signals that switch the circuit between its stable modes. The resulting system constitutes an ultra-low-energy Set-Reset flip-flop, and we show that its memory lifetime far exceeds the lifetime of states stored in any of its separate components.