| Abstract: | I will describe the experimental effort at UC Santa Barbara aimed at extending the quantum control we have achieved over superconducting electrical circuits to microwave photonic, mechanical and optomechanical systems. A long-sought goal in the nanomechanics community has been to demonstrate quantum effects in mechanical systems, something we were able to achieve about 3 years ago by coupling a particular superconducting quantum circuit, known as a phase qubit, to a microwave frequency acoustic mechanical resonator. We were able to show that we could demonstrably operate this mechanical resonator in its fundamental dilational mode, cool it to the quantum ground state, and furthermore control single acoustic quanta (phonons) in this structure. I will describe this effort, and also describe our more recent efforts to develop a microwave-to-optical converter, by coupling the same type of mechanical resonator to a structure known as an optomechanical crystal. We plan to use this device to generate optical frequency entangled photons from a superconducting qubit, enabling the transfer of quantum information from a millikelvin cryostat to a fiber optic transmission line. |
