Electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) spectroscopy is an important technology in physics, chemistry, materials science, and biology. Sensitive detection with a small sample volume isa key objective in these areas, because it is crucial, for example, for the readout of a highly packed spin based quantum memory or the detection of unlabeled metalloproteins in a single cell. In conventional EPR spectrometers, the energy transfer from the spins to the cavity at a Purcell enhanced rate plays an essential role and requires the spins to be resonant with the cavity, however the size of the cavity (limited by the wavelength) makes it difficult to improve the spatial resolution. Here, we demonstrate a novel EPR spectrometer using a single artificial atom as a sensitive detector of spin magnetization. The artificial atom, a superconducting flux qubit, provides advantages both in terms of its quantum properties and its much stronger coupling with magnetic fields. We have achieved a sensitivity of ∼400 spins/Hz‾‾‾√ with a magnetic sensing volume around 10−14λ3 (50 femto-liters). This corresponds to an improvement of two-order of magnitude in the magnetic sensing volume compared with the best cavity based spectrometers while maintaining a similar sensitivity as those spectrometers . Our artificial atom is suitable for scaling down and thus paves the way for measuring single spins on the nanometer scale.
The hybridization of distinct quantum systems is now seen as an effective way to engineer the properties of an entire system leading to applications in quantum metamaterials, quantumsimulation, and quantum metrology. One well known example is superconducting circuits coupled to ensembles of microscopic natural atoms. In such cases, the properties of the individual atom are intrinsic, and so are unchangeable. However, current technology allows us to fabricate large ensembles of macroscopic artificial atoms such as superconducting flux qubits, where we can really tailor and control the properties of individual qubits. Here, we demonstrate coherent coupling between a microwave resonator and several thousand superconducting flux qubits, where we observe a large dispersive frequency shift in the spectrum of 250 MHz induced by collective behavior. These results represent the largest number of coupled superconducting qubits realized so far. Our approach shows that it is now possible to engineer the properties of the ensemble, opening up the way for the controlled exploration of the quantum many-body system.
Macroscopic realism is the name for a class of modifications to quantum theory that allow macroscopic objects to be described in a measurement-independent fashion, while largely preservinga fully quantum mechanical description of the microscopic world. Objective collapse theories are examples which attempt to provide a physical mechanism for wavefunction collapse, and thereby aim to solve the quantum measurement problem. Here we describe and implement an experimental protocol capable of constraining theories of this class, and show how it is related to the original Leggett-Garg test, yet more noise tolerant and conceptually transparent. By conducting a set of simple ‚prepare, shuffle, measure‘ tests in a superconducting flux qubit, we rule out (by over 77 standard deviations) those theories which would deny coherent superpositions of 170 nA currents over a 9 ns timescale. Further, we address the ‚clumsiness loophole‘ by determining classical disturbance in a set of control experiments.
One of the promising systems to realize quantum computation is a hybrid system where a superconducting flux qubit plays a role of a quantum processor and the NV center ensemble is usedas a quantum memory. We have theoretically and experimentally studied the effect of magnetic fields on this hybrid system, and found that the lifetime of the vacuum Rabi oscillation is improved by applying a few mT magnetic field to the NV center ensemble. Here, we construct a theoretical model to reproduce the vacuum Rabi oscillations with/without magnetic fields applied to the NV centers, and we determine the reason why magnetic fields can affect the coherent properties of the NV center ensemble. From our theoretical analysis, we quantitatively show that the magnetic fields actually suppress the inhomogeneous broadening from the strain in the NV centers.
Here, we propose a scheme to generate a controllable Ising interaction between superconducting flux qubits. Existing schemes rely on inducting couplings to realize Ising interactionsbetween flux qubits, and the interaction strength is controlled by an applied magnetic field On the other hand, we have found a way to generate an interaction between the flux qubits via capacitive couplings. This has an advantage in individual addressability, because we can control the interaction strength by changing an applied voltage that can be easily localized. This is a crucial step toward the realizing superconducting flux qubit quantum computation.