K. Moelmer

Magnetic resonance with squeezed microwaves

  1. A. Bienfait,
  2. P. Campagne-Ibarcq,
  3. A. Holm-Kiilerich,
  4. X. Zhou,
  5. S. Probst,
  6. J.J. Pla,
  7. T. Schenkel,
  8. D. Vion,
  9. D. Esteve,
  10. J.J.L. Morton,
  11. K. Moelmer,
  12. and P. Bertet
Although vacuum fluctuations appear to represent a fundamental limit to the sensitivity of electromagnetic field measurements, it is possible to overcome them by using so-called squeezed
states. In such states, the noise in one field quadrature is reduced below the vacuum level while the other quadrature becomes correspondingly more noisy, as required by Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle. Squeezed optical fields have been proposed and demonstrated to enhance the sensitivity of interferometric measurements beyond the photon shot-noise limit, with applications in gravitational wave detection. They have also been used to increase the sensitivity of atomic absorption spectroscopy, imaging, atom-based magnetometry, and particle tracking in biological systems. At microwave frequencies, cryogenic temperatures are required for the electromagnetic field to be in its vacuum state. Squeezed microwaves have been produced, used for fundamental studies of light-matter interaction and for enhanced sensing of a mechanical resonator, and proposed to enhance the sensitivity of the readout of superconducting qubits. Here we report the use of squeezed microwave fields to enhance the sensitivity of magnetic resonance spectroscopy of an ensemble of electronic spins. Our scheme consists in sending a squeezed vacuum state to the input of a cavity containing the spins while they are emitting an echo, with the phase of the squeezed quadrature aligned with the phase of the echo. We demonstrate a total noise reduction of 1.2\,dB at the spectrometer output due to the squeezing. These results provide a motivation to examine the application of the full arsenal of quantum metrology to magnetic resonance detection.
arxiv pdf

Towards a spin-ensemble quantum memory for superconducting qubits

  1. C. Grezes,
  2. Y. Kubo,
  3. B. Julsgaard,
  4. T. Umeda,
  5. J. Isoya,
  6. H. Sumiya,
  7. H. Abe,
  8. S. Onoda,
  9. T. Ohshima,
  10. K. Nakamura,
  11. I. Diniz,
  12. A. Auffeves,
  13. V. Jacques,
  14. J.-F. Roch,
  15. D. Vion,
  16. D. Esteve,
  17. K. Moelmer,
  18. and P. Bertet
This article reviews efforts to build a new type of quantum device, which combines an ensemble of electronic spins with long coherence times, and a small-scale superconducting quantum
processor. The goal is to store over long times arbitrary qubit states in orthogonal collective modes of the spin-ensemble, and to retrieve them on-demand. We first present the protocol devised for such a multi-mode quantum memory. We then describe a series of experimental results using NV center spins in diamond, which demonstrate its main building blocks: the transfer of arbitrary quantum states from a qubit into the spin ensemble, and the multi-mode retrieval of classical microwave pulses down to the single-photon level with a Hahn-echo like sequence. A reset of the spin memory is implemented in-between two successive sequences using optical repumping of the spins.
arxiv pdf