CAREER: Engineering Interacting Photons in Superconducting-Circuit Lattices

光子是存在于电磁波谱中的光粒子，从无线电和微波到可见光和紫外光。超导体在冷却到极低温度时携带电流而不产生热量，利用超导体，就有可能制造出微波电路。与大多数室温设备不同，微波电路中的光子可以存活很长时间，并且局限在空间的小区域内。由于这些光子停留在原地而不是飞走，它们变得更像电子等传统粒子，微波工程的全部威力和多样性可以用来控制它们如何观察世界并与世界相互作用。通过控制这些光子如何相互作用以及它们周围的世界，这个项目将探索我们周围材料的基本组成部分，并了解粒子生活的环境如何影响它的性质。该项目还将建立在最近发起的虚拟AMO研讨会（PI是该研讨会的董事会成员）的基础上，开发一个辅助小组计划系列，旨在以有意义的方式吸引非物理学家和本科生参与在线研究研讨会，并促进不断扩大的量子劳动力的交流。该项目的具体研究目标之一是利用超导微波谐振器阵列来生产微波超材料，其中光子-光子相互作用可以通过超导量子位介导。先前的理论工作表明，这些超材料可以访问非常规的能带结构，如带间隙的平面带的晶格，以及更一般的数学对象，如树状图和双曲图，PI将实现非常规的微波晶格，并结合量子比特来调解相互作用。调查将从一维晶格开始，并在项目过程中转向高维结构。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Photons are particles of light which exist all across the electromagnetic spectrum, from radio and microwaves to visible and ultra-violet light. By making use of superconductors, which carry current without generating heat when cooled to very low temperatures, it is possible to make microwave circuits where, unlike in most room-temperature devices, the photons live for very long times and stay confined in small regions in space. Since these photons stay put instead of flying away, they become more like conventional particles such as electrons, and the full might and diversity of microwave engineering can be used to control how they see and interact with the world. By controlling how these photons interact with each other and the world around them, this project will probe the fundamental building blocks of the materials around us and learn about how the environment in which a particle lives affects its properties. The project will also build upon the recently-initiated Virtual AMO Seminar, of which the PI is a board member, to develop an auxiliary small-group program series aimed at engaging non-physicists and undergraduate students in online research seminars in a meaningful way and facilitating communication in the ever-broadening quantum workforce.Among this project’s specific research goals is to harness arrays of superconducting microwave resonators to produce microwave metamaterials in which photon-photon interactions can be mediated by superconducting qubits. Building on previous theoretical work showing that these metamaterials can access unconventional band structures, such as lattices with gapped flat bands and also much more general mathematical objects such as tree-like and hyperbolic graphs, the PI will implement unconventional microwave lattices and incorporate qubits to mediate interactions. Investigation will begin with one-dimensional lattices and move toward higher-dimensional structures during the course of the project.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.