• DOI:10.1038/s41467-022-33921-6
• Corpus ID: 252899410

An ultra-high gain single-photon transistor in the microwave regime

@article{Wang2022AnUG,
  title={An ultra-high gain single-photon transistor in the microwave regime},
  author={Zhiling Wang and Zenghui Bao and Yan Li and Yukai Wu and Weizhou Cai and Weiting Wang and Xiyue Han and Jiahui Wang and Yipu Song and Luyan Sun and Hongyi Zhang and Luming Duan},
  journal={Nature Communications},
  year={2022},
  volume={13}
}

• Zhiling Wang, Zenghui Bao, +9 authors L. Duan
• Published 15 October 2022
• Physics
• Nature Communications

A photonic transistor that can switch or amplify an optical signal with a single gate photon requires strong non-linear interaction at the single-photon level. Circuit quantum electrodynamics provides great flexibility to generate such an interaction, and thus could serve as an effective platform to realize a high-performance single-photon transistor. Here we demonstrate such a photonic transistor in the microwave regime. Our device consists of two microwave cavities dispersively coupled to a superconducting qubit. A single gate photon imprints a phase shift on the qubit state through one cavity, and further shifts the resonance frequency of the other cavity. In this way, we realize a gain of the transistor up to 53.4 dB, with an extinction ratio better than 20 dB. Our device outperforms previous devices in the optical regime by several orders in terms of optical gain, which indicates a great potential for application in the field of microwave quantum photonics and quantum information processing. Successfully controlling an optical signal by a single gate photon would have great applicability for quantum networks and all-optical computing. Here, the authors realise a single-photon transistor in the microwave regime based on superconducting quantum circuits.