近日，美国伊利诺大学香槟分校的Simeon I. Bogdanov&Dale J. Van Harlingen及其研究团队取得一项新进展。经过不懈努力，他们实现太赫兹介导的微波光转导。相关研究成果已于2024年4月10日在国际知名学术期刊《物理评论A》上发表。

该研究团队深入分析了在太赫兹范围内，采用基于中频状态的两步方案的电光换能器的耦合热动力学和波动动力学特性。这一分析得到了数值模拟的有力支持，研究结果显示，相较于单步转导，在连续泵浦条件下运行的两步方案能够实现接近1的外部效率，并具备多阶噪声抑制的优势。因此，这种两步电光换能器有望为超导量子处理器与兆赫级比特率的光通道提供量子噪声限制的接口。

据悉，量子信号在微波和光学范围之间的转导将解锁强大的混合量子系统，使信息处理与超导量子比特和低噪声量子网络通过光子。大多数微波光量子换能器由于泵浦吸收而产生热噪声。

附：英文原文

Title: Terahertz-mediated microwave-to-optical transduction

Author: Furkan Sahbaz, James N. Eckstein, Dale J. Van Harlingen, Simeon I. Bogdanov

Issue&Volume: 2024/04/10

Abstract: Transduction of quantum signals between the microwave and the optical ranges will unlock powerful hybrid quantum systems enabling information processing with superconducting qubits and low-noise quantum networking through optical photons. Most microwave-to-optical quantum transducers suffer from thermal noise due to pump absorption. We analyze the coupled thermal and wave dynamics in electro-optic transducers that use a two-step scheme based on an intermediate frequency state in the THz range. Our analysis, supported by numerical simulations, shows that the two-step scheme operating with a continuous pump offers near-unity external efficiency with a multiorder noise suppression compared to single-step transduction. As a result, two-step electro-optic transducers may enable quantum-noise-limited interfacing of superconducting quantum processors with optical channels at MHz-scale bit rates.

DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevA.109.042409

Source: https://journals.aps.org/pra/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevA.109.042409