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Nonreciprocal reconfigurable microwave optomechanical circuit.

Accepted version
Peer-reviewed

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Authors

Bernier, NR 
Tóth, LD 
Koottandavida, A 
Ioannou, MA 

Abstract

Nonreciprocal microwave devices are ubiquitous in radar and radio communication and indispensable in the readout chains of superconducting quantum circuits. Since they commonly rely on ferrite materials requiring large magnetic fields that make them bulky and lossy, there has been significant interest in magnetic-field-free on-chip alternatives, such as those recently implemented using the Josephson nonlinearity. Here, we realize reconfigurable nonreciprocal transmission between two microwave modes using purely optomechanical interactions in a superconducting electromechanical circuit. The scheme relies on the interference in two mechanical modes that mediate coupling between the microwave cavities and requires no magnetic field. We analyse the isolation, transmission and the noise properties of this nonreciprocal circuit. Finally, we show how quantum-limited circulators can be realized with the same principle. All-optomechanically mediated nonreciprocity demonstrated here can also be extended to directional amplifiers, and it forms the basis towards realizing topological states of light and sound.Nonreciprocal optical devices traditionally rely on magnetic fields and magnetic-free approaches are rather recent. Here, Bernier et al. propose and demonstrate a purely optomechanical circulator with reconfigurable transmission without the need for direct coupling between input and output modes.

Description

Keywords

quant-ph, quant-ph, cond-mat.mes-hall, cond-mat.supr-con

Journal Title

Nature Communications

Conference Name

Journal ISSN

2041-1723
2041-1723

Volume Title

8

Publisher

Springer Nature
Sponsorship
The Royal Society (uf130303)
European Commission Horizon 2020 (H2020) Future and Emerging Technologies (FET) (732894)
EPSRC (1642448)
Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EP/M506485/1)
This work was supported by the SNF, the NCCR Quantum Science and Technology (QSIT), and the EU Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No. 732894 (FET Proactive HOT). DM acknowledges support by the UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) under Grant No. EP/M506485/1. T.J.K. acknowledges financial support from an ERC AdG (QuREM). A.N. holds a University Research Fellowship from the Royal Society and acknowledges support from the Winton Programme for the Physics of Sustainability. A.K. holds INSPIRE scholarship from the Department of Science and Technology, India. All samples were fabricated in the Center of MicroNanoTechnology (CMi) at EPFL.