Transmon Architecture for Emission and Detection of Single Microwave Photons

Fuente: arXiv
Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Campbell, Daniel L., McCoy, Stephen, Andrews, Melinda, Madden, Alexander, Horowitz, Viva R., Husremović, Bakir, Marash, Samuel, Nadeau, Christopher, Nguyen, Man, Brownell, Andrew M., Sica, Derrick, Senatore, Michael, Schwab, Samuel, Sheridan, Erin, LaHaye, Matthew D.
Format: Preprint
Published: 2026
Subjects:
Online Access:
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
_version_ 1866914525643538432
author Campbell, Daniel L.
McCoy, Stephen
Andrews, Melinda
Madden, Alexander
Horowitz, Viva R.
Husremović, Bakir
Marash, Samuel
Nadeau, Christopher
Nguyen, Man
Brownell, Andrew M.
Sica, Derrick
Senatore, Michael
Schwab, Samuel
Sheridan, Erin
LaHaye, Matthew D.
author_facet Campbell, Daniel L.
McCoy, Stephen
Andrews, Melinda
Madden, Alexander
Horowitz, Viva R.
Husremović, Bakir
Marash, Samuel
Nadeau, Christopher
Nguyen, Man
Brownell, Andrew M.
Sica, Derrick
Senatore, Michael
Schwab, Samuel
Sheridan, Erin
LaHaye, Matthew D.
contents We develop a compact transmon emitter/detector (TED) superconducting circuit and demonstrate its dual functionality as a single-photon source and detector. In our setup, photons emitted by a source TED are transmitted via a meter-long coaxial cable, routed through a circulator, and captured by a measurement TED. Both TED modules operate with nominally identical parameters, highlighting the flexibility of this novel architecture. Furthermore, we introduce an efficient microwave photon detection scheme tailored to the TED. Using this setup, we detect 60% of the emitted Fock state photons and infer a 95% detection efficiency at the input of the measurement TED, which we calibrate against coherent state measurements. The reset and photon emission/detection processes each require approximately $2\,μs$, yielding a minimum protocol duration of $4\,μs$ as constrained by our chosen TED parameters. Ultimately, the TED demonstrates a new use case for the recently developed double transmon coupler (DTC): a compact, drop-in, tunable, and transition-selective link between a coherent data transmon and a waveguide. Circuits like the TED will play a vital role in quantum information processing by facilitating unconditional fast reset, enabling microwave photon metrology, and serving as nascent quantum communication interfaces (QCIs). QCIs mediate entanglement distribution between quantum processing units (QPUs) within a cryostat or interface with microwave-to-optical transducers for long-range quantum networking.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2601_11378
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Transmon Architecture for Emission and Detection of Single Microwave Photons
Campbell, Daniel L.
McCoy, Stephen
Andrews, Melinda
Madden, Alexander
Horowitz, Viva R.
Husremović, Bakir
Marash, Samuel
Nadeau, Christopher
Nguyen, Man
Brownell, Andrew M.
Sica, Derrick
Senatore, Michael
Schwab, Samuel
Sheridan, Erin
LaHaye, Matthew D.
Quantum Physics
We develop a compact transmon emitter/detector (TED) superconducting circuit and demonstrate its dual functionality as a single-photon source and detector. In our setup, photons emitted by a source TED are transmitted via a meter-long coaxial cable, routed through a circulator, and captured by a measurement TED. Both TED modules operate with nominally identical parameters, highlighting the flexibility of this novel architecture. Furthermore, we introduce an efficient microwave photon detection scheme tailored to the TED. Using this setup, we detect 60% of the emitted Fock state photons and infer a 95% detection efficiency at the input of the measurement TED, which we calibrate against coherent state measurements. The reset and photon emission/detection processes each require approximately $2\,μs$, yielding a minimum protocol duration of $4\,μs$ as constrained by our chosen TED parameters. Ultimately, the TED demonstrates a new use case for the recently developed double transmon coupler (DTC): a compact, drop-in, tunable, and transition-selective link between a coherent data transmon and a waveguide. Circuits like the TED will play a vital role in quantum information processing by facilitating unconditional fast reset, enabling microwave photon metrology, and serving as nascent quantum communication interfaces (QCIs). QCIs mediate entanglement distribution between quantum processing units (QPUs) within a cryostat or interface with microwave-to-optical transducers for long-range quantum networking.
title Transmon Architecture for Emission and Detection of Single Microwave Photons
topic Quantum Physics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2601.11378