A candidate for converting quantum information from microwave to optical frequencies is the use of a single atom that interacts with a superconducting microwave resonator on one handand an optical cavity on the other. The large electric dipole moments and microwave transition frequencies possessed by Rydberg states allow them to couple strongly to superconducting devices. Lasers can then be used to connect a Rydberg transition to an optical transition to realize the conversion. Since the fundamental source of noise in this process is spontaneous emission from the atomic levels, the resulting control problem involves choosing the pulse shapes of the driving lasers so as to maximize the transfer rate while minimizing this loss. Here we consider the concrete example of a cesium atom, along with two specific choices for the levels to be used in the conversion cycle. Under the assumption that spontaneous emission is the only significant source of errors, we use numerical optimization to determine the likely rates for reliable quantum communication that could be achieved with this device. These rates are on the order of a few Mega-qubits per second.
We describe the design and characterization of superconducting coplanar waveguide cavities tailored to facilitate strong coupling between superconducting quantum circuits and singletrapped Rydberg atoms. For initial superconductor-atom experiments at 4.2 K, we show that resonator quality factors above 104 can be readily achieved. Furthermore, we demonstrate that the incorporation of thick-film copper electrodes at a voltage antinode of the resonator provides a route to enhance the zero-point electric fields of the resonator in a trapping region that is 40 μm above the chip surface, thereby minimizing chip heating from scattered trap light. The combination of high resonator quality factor and strong electric dipole coupling between the resonator and the atom should make it possible to achieve the strong coupling limit of cavity quantum electrodynamics with this system.
We propose a novel hybrid quantum gate between an atom and a microwave photon in a superconducting coplanar waveguide cavity by exploiting the strong resonant microwave coupling betweenadjacent Rydberg states. Using experimentally achievable parameters gate fidelities >0.99 are possible on sub-μs timescales for waveguide temperatures below 40 mK. This provides a mechanism for generating entanglement between two disparate quantum systems and represents an important step in the creation of a hybrid quantum interface applicable for both quantum simulation and quantum information processing.