CAREER: Circuit Quantum Optics with Piezoelectric Surface Acoustic Waves

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Hybrid quantum systems and technologies exhibiting exciting properties and novel functionality can be created by bringing together quantum circuits and devices with fundamentally different, but complementary, properties. This is particularly true of hybrid systems based on superconducting quantum bits (qubits) coupled to piezoelectric surface acoustic wave (SAW) devices. These engineered systems, in which quantum information stored in the qubit can be controllably coupled to the microscopic surface waves of a piezoelectric crystal, are an ideal platform for understanding the exotic behavior of strongly-coupled synthetic quantum systems. Additionally, SAW devices are already a key component in many classical electronic devices such as cell phones, touch screens and chemical sensors. Given their wide applicability in classical electronics it is natural to ask if SAW-based devices might find similar success in the field of quantum information science (QIS). Developing piezoelectric SAW-devices for quantum applications is in its infancy, with much uncharted territory ripe for the development of new technologies and exciting discoveries. By harnessing the controlled quantum behavior of superconducting qubits, the proposed program will investigate the fundamental properties of SAW-based quantum systems and advance the development of next-generation technologies for quantum sensing, computation and communication. The program will also advance the education and research experiences of a diverse group of graduate students and strengthen the QIS educational initiatives that the principal investigator (PI) is developing at Michigan State University (MSU). As the Associate Director of the MSU Center for Quantum Computing, Science and Engineering the PI is also working to enhance the diversity of QIS researchers at MSU by helping to recruit graduate and undergraduate students from under-represented groups and provide support to find local research opportunities and private sector internships for the Center’s junior QIS researchers.This program is focused on the experimental investigation of novel regimes of circuit quantum optics using hybrid quantum systems composed of superconducting circuit-based qubits coupled to piezoelectric surface acoustic wave (SAW) devices. The projects cover new topics ranging from quantum acoustic bath engineering to the generation of squeezed states of high-frequency SAW piezo-phonons. Transmon qubits coupled to precisely designed SAW-resonators will leverage controllable levels of acoustic dissipation to autonomously stabilize coherent qubit superpositions and engineer exotic quantum states via acoustic loss. Additionally non-classical states of SAWs will be transduced from non-classical states of microwave photons using parametric Josephson junction devices, creating the opportunity to investigate non-Markovian properties of itinerant piezo-phonons coupled to superconducting qubits. The program will also explore the possibility of developing novel SAW-based devices with qubits beyond transmons (i.e. via the incorporation of flux-qubits or fluxonium-based devices). The realization and understanding of these “quantum acoustic” systems and devices will greatly expand the fundamental knowledge of highly-controlled synthetic quantum systems and how they might realize new quantum technologies.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.