We show that the inductive coupling between the quantum mechanical motion of a superconducting microcantilever and a flux-dependent microwave quantum circuit can attain the strong single-photonnanomechanical coupling regime with feasible experimental parameters. We propose to use a superconducting strip, which is in the Meissner state, at the tip of a cantilever. A pick-up coil collects the flux generated by the sheet currents induced by an external quadrupole magnetic field centered at the strip location. The position-dependent magnetic response of the superconducting strip, enhanced by both diamagnetism and demagnetizing effects, leads to a strong magnetomechanical coupling to quantum circuits.
Photons are ideal carriers for quantum information as they can have a long
coherence time and can be transmitted over long distances. These properties are
a consequence of their weakinteractions within a nearly linear medium. To
create and manipulate nonclassical states of light, however, one requires a
strong, nonlinear interaction at the single photon level. One approach to
generate suitable interactions is to couple photons to atoms, as in the strong
coupling regime of cavity QED systems. In these systems, however, one only
indirectly controls the quantum state of the light by manipulating the atoms. A
direct photon-photon interaction occurs in so-called Kerr media, which
typically induce only weak nonlinearity at the cost of significant loss. So
far, it has not been possible to reach the single-photon Kerr regime, where the
interaction strength between individual photons exceeds the loss rate. Here,
using a 3D circuit QED architecture, we engineer an artificial Kerr medium
which enters this regime and allows the observation of new quantum effects. We
realize a Gedankenexperiment proposed by Yurke and Stoler, in which the
collapse and revival of a coherent state can be observed. This time evolution
is a consequence of the quantization of the light field in the cavity and the
nonlinear interaction between individual photons. During this evolution
non-classical superpositions of coherent states, i.e. multi-component
Schroedinger cat states, are formed. We visualize this evolution by measuring
the Husimi Q-function and confirm the non-classical properties of these
transient states by Wigner tomography. The single-photon Kerr effect could be
employed in QND measurement of photons, single photon generation, autonomous
quantum feedback schemes and quantum logic operations.
We present a semi-classical method for determining the effective low-energy
quantum Hamiltonian of weakly anharmonic superconducting circuits containing
mesoscopic Josephson junctionscoupled to electromagnetic environments made of
an arbitrary combination of distributed and lumped elements. A convenient
basis, capturing the multi-mode physics, is given by the quantized eigenmodes
of the linearized circuit and is fully determined by a classical linear
response function. The method is used to calculate numerically the low-energy
spectrum of a 3D-transmon system, and quantitative agreement with measurements
is found.