- Physical Review Journals
All JournalsPhysics Magazine

Physical Review Applied

Reuse & Permissions

It is not necessary to obtain permission to reuse this article or its components as it is available under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI are maintained. Please note that some figures may have been included with permission from other third parties. It is your responsibility to obtain the proper permission from the rights holder directly for these figures.

Export citation

Export citation

Choose format for download:

Download Citation
  • Open Access

Nonreciprocal scattering in a microwave frequency comb

Christoph L. Bock, J.C. Rivera Hernández, Fabio Lingua, and David B. Haviland*

  • *Contact author: haviland@kth.se
PDF

Phys. Rev. Applied 24, 014027 – Published 14 July, 2025

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/kz53-dryz

Abstract

We investigate nonreciprocal scattering within the modes of a microwave frequency comb. Adjusting the pump frequencies, amplitudes, and phases of a Josephson parametric oscillator, we control constructive interference for the m⟶ℓ scattering processes, while concurrently achieving destructive interference for the inverse process ℓ⟶m. We outline the methodology for realizing nonreciprocity in the context of two-mode isolation and a three-mode circulation, which we extend to multiple modes. We find good agreement between the experiments and a linearized theoretical model. Nonreciprocal scattering expands the toolset for parametric control, with the potential to engineer alternative quantum correlations.

View figure in article

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Article Text

References (33)

  1. M. H. Devoret and R. J. Schoelkopf, Superconducting circuits for quantum information: An outlook, Science 339, 1169 (2013).
  2. Xiu Gu, Anton Frisk Kockum, Adam Miranowicz, Yu-xi Liu, and Franco Nori, Microwave photonics with superconducting quantum circuits, Phys. Rep. 718, 1 (2017).
  3. Frank Arute et al., Quantum supremacy using a programmable superconducting processor, Nature 574, 505 (2019).
  4. András Gyenis, Agustin Di Paolo, Jens Koch, Alexandre Blais, Andrew A. Houck, and David I. Schuster, Moving beyond the transmon: Noise-protected superconducting quantum circuits, PRX Quantum 2, 030101 (2021).
  5. Joseph C. Bardin, Daniel H. Slichter, and David J. Reilly, Microwaves in quantum computing, IEEE J. Microw. 1, 403 (2021).
  6. Carlton M. Caves, Joshua Combes, Zhang Jiang, and Shashank Pandey, Quantum limits on phase-preserving linear amplifiers, Phys. Rev. A 86, 063802 (2012).
  7. B. Yurke, M. L. Roukes, R. Movshovich, and A. N. Pargellis, A low-noise series-array Josephson junction parametric amplifier, Appl. Phys. Lett. 69, 3078 (1996).
  8. M. A. Castellanos-Beltran and K. W. Lehnert, Widely tunable parametric amplifier based on a superconducting quantum interference device array resonator, Appl. Phys. Lett. 91, 083509 (2007).
  9. M. A. Castellanos-Beltran, K. D. Irwin, G. C. Hilton, L. R. Vale, and K. W. Lehnert, Amplification and squeezing of quantum noise with a tunable Josephson metamaterial, Nat. Phys. 4, 929 (2008), Publisher: Nature Publishing Group.
  10. T. Yamamoto, K. Inomata, M. Watanabe, K. Matsuba, T. Miyazaki, W. D. Oliver, Y. Nakamura, and J. S. Tsai, Flux-driven Josephson parametric amplifier, Appl. Phys. Lett. 93, 042510 (2008).
  11. N. Bergeal, F. Schackert, M. Metcalfe, R. Vijay, V. E. Manucharyan, L. Frunzio, D. E. Prober, R. J. Schoelkopf, S. M. Girvin, and M. H. Devoret, Phase-preserving amplification near the quantum limit with a Josephson ring modulator, Nature 465, 64 (2010).
  12. Jose Aumentado, Superconducting parametric amplifiers: The state of the art in Josephson parametric amplifiers, IEEE Microw. Mag. 21, 45 (2020).
  13. Baleegh Abdo, Katrina Sliwa, Luigi Frunzio, and Michel Devoret, Directional amplification with a Josephson circuit, Phys. Rev. X 3, 031001 (2013).
  14. A. Metelmann and A. A. Clerk, Nonreciprocal photon transmission and amplification via reservoir engineering, Phys. Rev. X 5, 021025 (2015).
  15. C. Macklin, K. O’Brien, D. Hover, M. E. Schwartz, V. Bolkhovsky, X. Zhang, W. D. Oliver, and I. Siddiqi, A near–quantum-limited Josephson traveling-wave parametric amplifier, Science 350, 307 (2015).
  16. Hampus Renberg Nilsson, Anita Fadavi Roudsari, Daryoush Shiri, Per Delsing, and Vitaly Shumeiko, High-gain traveling-wave parametric amplifier based on three-wave mixing, Phys. Rev. Appl. 19, 044056 (2023).
  17. Archana Kamal, John Clarke, and M. H. Devoret, Noiseless non-reciprocity in a parametric active device, Nat. Phys. 7, 311 (2011).
  18. Nicholas A. Estep, Dimitrios L. Sounas, Jason Soric, and Andrea Alù, Magnetic-free non-reciprocity and isolation based on parametrically modulated coupled-resonator loops, Nat. Phys. 10, 923 (2014).
  19. Joseph Kerckhoff, Kevin Lalumière, Benjamin J. Chapman, Alexandre Blais, and K. W. Lehnert, On-chip superconducting microwave circulator from synthetic rotation, Phys. Rev. Appl. 4, 034002 (2015).
  20. Arkady Fedorov, N. Pradeep Kumar, Dat Thanh Le, Rohit Navarathna, Prasanna Pakkiam, and Thomas M. Stace, Nonreciprocity and circulation in a passive Josephson-junction ring, Phys. Rev. Lett. 132, 097001 (2024).
  21. F. Lecocq, L. Ranzani, G. A. Peterson, K. Cicak, R. W. Simmonds, J. D. Teufel, and J. Aumentado, Nonreciprocal microwave signal processing with a field-programmable Josephson amplifier, Phys. Rev. Appl. 7, 024028 (2017).
  22. F. Lecocq, L. Ranzani, G. A. Peterson, K. Cicak, A. Metelmann, S. Kotler, R. W. Simmonds, J. D. Teufel, and J. Aumentado, Microwave measurement beyond the quantum limit with a nonreciprocal amplifier, Phys. Rev. Appl. 13, 044005 (2020).
  23. F. Lecocq, L. Ranzani, G. A. Peterson, K. Cicak, X. Y. Jin, R. W. Simmonds, J. D. Teufel, and J. Aumentado, Efficient qubit measurement with a nonreciprocal microwave amplifier, Phys. Rev. Lett. 126, 020502 (2021).
  24. L. Deák and T. Fülöp, Reciprocity in quantum, electromagnetic and other wave scattering, Ann. Phys. 327, 1050 (2012).
  25. Leonardo Ranzani and José Aumentado, Graph-based analysis of nonreciprocity in coupled-mode systems, New J. Phys. 17, 023024 (2015).
  26. Luqi Yuan, Qian Lin, Meng Xiao, and Shanhui Fan, Synthetic dimension in photonics, Optica 5, 1396 (2018).
  27. Kejie Fang, Zongfu Yu, and Shanhui Fan, Realizing effective magnetic field for photons by controlling the phase of dynamic modulation, Nat. Photonics 6, 782 (2012).
  28. Mats O. Tholén, Riccardo Borgani, Giuseppe Ruggero Di Carlo, Andreas Bengtsson, Christian Križan, Marina Kudra, Giovanna Tancredi, Jonas Bylander, Per Delsing, Simone Gasparinetti, and David B. Haviland, Measurement and control of a superconducting quantum processor with a fully integrated radio-frequency system on a chip, Rev. Sci. Instrum. 93, 104711 (2022).
  29. Yoshihisa Yamamoto and Kouichi Semba, editors. Principles and Methods of Quantum Information Technologies, Lecture Notes in Physics (Springer Japan, Tokyo, 2016), Vol. 911.
  30. J. C. Rivera Hernández, Fabio Lingua, Shan W. Jolin, and David B. Haviland, Control of multi-modal scattering in a microwave frequency comb, APL Quantum 1, 036101 (2024).
  31. Ofer Naaman and José Aumentado, Synthesis of parametrically coupled networks, PRX Quantum 3, 020201 (2022).
  32. Leonardo Ranzani and Jose Aumentado, Circulators at the quantum limit: Recent realizations of quantum-limited superconducting circulators and related approaches, IEEE Microw. Mag. 20, 112 (2019).
  33. Christoph L. Bock, Juan Carlos Rivera Hernández, Fabio Lingua, and David B. Haviland, Data Repository for the Article “Non-reciprocal Scattering in a Microwave Frequency Comb”, Zenodo, https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.15459741, May 2025. Version Number: 1.0.0.

Outline

Information

Phys. Rev. Applied 24, 014027– Published 14 July, 2025
  • Received 16 January 2025
  • Revised 30 May 2025
  • Accepted 20 June 2025
Crossmark - Check for updates button
Creative Commons Logo

Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article’s title, journal citation, and DOI. Funded by Bibsam.

Published by the American Physical Society

Sign In to Your Journals Account

Filter

Filter

Article Lookup

Enter a citation