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
  • Letter
  • Open Access

Correlated noise can be beneficial to quantum transducers

Yu-Bo Hou*, Xiaoan Ai*, Ruizhe You, and Changchun Zhong†

  • *These authors contributed equally to this work.
  • †Contact author: zhong.changchun@xjtu.edu.cn

Phys. Rev. Research 7, L032042 – Published 22 August, 2025

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/zq39-wzdb

Abstract

Quantum systems are inherently susceptible to noise—a notorious factor that induces decoherence and limits the performance of quantum applications. To mitigate its detrimental effects, various techniques have been developed, including cryogenic cooling, bath engineering, and quantum error correction. In this Letter, we demonstrate that by exploiting noise correlations in coupled quantum systems, the overall impact of noise can be significantly suppressed. Specifically, in a piezo-optomechanical-based microwave-optical quantum transducer, correlations between the noise affecting the acoustic and electrical modes can lead to substantial noise reduction, thereby enhancing the performance of quantum transduction. This reduction is primarily governed by the phase of the piezomechanical coupling and is also influenced by system parameters such as the coupling ratio and mode cooperativity. Since these parameters simultaneously affect the signal transmissivity, they must be optimized to achieve the transducer’s optimal performance. Our work provides a systematic framework for this optimization, offering a guidance for practical designs.

View figure in article

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Article Text

References (33)

  1. R. W. Andrews, R. W. Peterson, T. P. Purdy, K. Cicak, R. W. Simmonds, C. A. Regal, and K. W. Lehnert, Bidirectional and efficient conversion between microwave and optical light, Nat. Phys. 10, 321 (2014).
  2. W. Jiang, C. J. Sarabalis, Y. D. Dahmani, R. N. Patel, F. M. Mayor, T. P. McKenna, R. Van Laer, and A. H. Safavi-Naeini, Efficient bidirectional piezo-optomechanical transduction between microwave and optical frequency, Nat. Commun. 11, 1166 (2020).
  3. M. Guha Majumdar, Quantum transduction using optoelectromechanical systems: Conversion of quantum information between optical and microwave systems, Resonance 27, 1703 (2022).
  4. W. Hease, A. Rueda, R. Sahu, M. Wulf, G. Arnold, H. G. Schwefel, and J. M. Fink, Bidirectional electro-optic wavelength conversion in the quantum ground state, PRX Quantum 1, 020315 (2020).
  5. C. Zhong, X. Han, and L. Jiang, Microwave and optical entanglement for quantum transduction with electro-optomechanics, Phys. Rev. Appl. 18, 054061 (2022).
  6. M. Mirhosseini, A. Sipahigil, M. Kalaee, and O. Painter, Superconducting qubit to optical photon transduction, Nature (London) 588, 599 (2020).
  7. C. Javerzac-Galy, K. Plekhanov, N. R. Bernier, L. D. Toth, A. K. Feofanov, and T. J. Kippenberg, On-chip microwave-to-optical quantum coherent converter based on a superconducting resonator coupled to an electro-optic microresonator, Phys. Rev. A 94, 053815 (2016).
  8. R. Hisatomi, A. Osada, Y. Tabuchi, T. Ishikawa, A. Noguchi, R. Yamazaki, K. Usami, and Y. Nakamura, Bidirectional conversion between microwave and light via ferromagnetic magnons, Phys. Rev. B 93, 174427 (2016).
  9. R. Radebaugh and J. Siegwarth, Dilution refrigerator technology, Cryogenics 11, 368 (1971).
  10. H. Zu, W. Dai, and A. De Waele, Development of dilution refrigerators—A review, Cryogenics 121, 103390 (2022).
  11. X. Han, W. Fu, C. Zhong, C.-L. Zou, Y. Xu, A. A. Sayem, M. Xu, S. Wang, R. Cheng, L. Jiang et al., Cavity piezo-mechanics for superconducting-nanophotonic quantum interface, Nat. Commun. 11, 3237 (2020).
  12. W. Fu, M. Xu, X. Liu, C.-L. Zou, C. Zhong, X. Han, M. Shen, Y. Xu, R. Cheng, S. Wang, L. Jiang, and H. X. Tang, Cavity electro-optic circuit for microwave-to-optical conversion in the quantum ground state, Phys. Rev. A 103, 053504 (2021).
  13. C. Zhong, Z. Wang, C. Zou, M. Zhang, X. Han, W. Fu, M. Xu, S. Shankar, M. H. Devoret, H. X. Tang, and L. Jiang, Proposal for heralded generation and detection of entangled microwave–optical-photon pairs, Phys. Rev. Lett. 124, 010511 (2020).
  14. M. Xu, X. Han, C.-L. Zou, W. Fu, Y. Xu, C. Zhong, L. Jiang, and H. X. Tang, Radiative cooling of a superconducting resonator, Phys. Rev. Lett. 124, 033602 (2020).
  15. S. Meesala, D. Lake, S. Wood, P. Chiappina, C. Zhong, A. D. Beyer, M. D. Shaw, L. Jiang, and O. Painter, Quantum entanglement between optical and microwave photonic qubits, Phys. Rev. X 14, 031055 (2024).
  16. B. Albanese, S. Probst, V. Ranjan, C. W. Zollitsch, M. Pechal, A. Wallraff, J. J. Morton, D. Vion, D. Esteve, E. Flurin et al., Radiative cooling of a spin ensemble, Nat. Phys. 16, 751 (2020).
  17. H. Wu, S. Mirkhanov, W. Ng, and M. Oxborrow, Bench-top cooling of a microwave mode using an optically pumped spin refrigerator, Phys. Rev. Lett. 127, 053604 (2021).
  18. A. P. Higginbotham, P. Burns, M. Urmey, R. Peterson, N. Kampel, B. Brubaker, G. Smith, K. Lehnert, and C. Regal, Harnessing electro-optic correlations in an efficient mechanical converter, Nat. Phys. 14, 1038 (2018).
  19. M. Zhang, C.-L. Zou, and L. Jiang, Quantum transduction with adaptive control, Phys. Rev. Lett. 120, 020502 (2018).
  20. Z. Zhang, S. Mouradian, F. N. C. Wong, and J. H. Shapiro, Entanglement-enhanced sensing in a lossy and noisy environment, Phys. Rev. Lett. 114, 110506 (2015).
  21. Y. Xia, A. R. Agrawal, C. M. Pluchar, A. J. Brady, Z. Liu, Q. Zhuang, D. J. Wilson, and Z. Zhang, Entanglement-enhanced optomechanical sensing, Nat. Photon. 17, 470 (2023).
  22. M. Aspelmeyer, T. J. Kippenberg, and F. Marquardt, Cavity optomechanics, Rev. Mod. Phys. 86, 1391 (2014).
  23. C. Zhong, X. Han, H. X. Tang, and L. Jiang, Entanglement of microwave-optical modes in a strongly coupled electro-optomechanical system, Phys. Rev. A 101, 032345 (2020).
  24. C. Weedbrook, S. Pirandola, R. García-Patrón, N. J. Cerf, T. C. Ralph, J. H. Shapiro, and S. Lloyd, Gaussian quantum information, Rev. Mod. Phys. 84, 621 (2012).
  25. F. Buscemi and N. Datta, The quantum capacity of channels with arbitrarily correlated noise, IEEE Trans. Inf. Theory 56, 1447 (2010).
  26. J. P. Clemens, S. Siddiqui, and J. Gea-Banacloche, Quantum error correction against correlated noise, Phys. Rev. A 69, 062313 (2004).
  27. R. Harper and S. T. Flammia, Learning correlated noise in a 39-qubit quantum processor, PRX Quantum 4, 040311 (2023).
  28. E. Novais and H. U. Baranger, Decoherence by correlated noise and quantum error correction, Phys. Rev. Lett. 97, 040501 (2006).
  29. A. Salhov, Q. Cao, J. Cai, A. Retzker, F. Jelezko, and G. Genov, Protecting quantum information via destructive interference of correlated noise, Phys. Rev. Lett. 132, 223601 (2024).
  30. G. De Chiara, R. Fazio, C. Macchiavello, and G. M. Palma, Quantum error correction driven entanglement dynamics in the presence of correlated noise, Int. J. Quantum Inf. 03, 207 (2005).
  31. S. Meesala, S. Wood, D. Lake, P. Chiappina, C. Zhong, A. Beyer, M. Shaw, L. Jiang, and O. Painter, Non-classical microwave-optical photon pair generation with a chip-scale transducer, Nat. Phys. 20, 871 (2024).
  32. A. Rueda, W. Hease, S. Barzanjeh, and J. M. Fink, Electro-optic entanglement source for microwave to telecom quantum state transfer, npj Quantum Inf. 5, 108 (2019).
  33. S. Barzanjeh, D. Vitali, P. Tombesi, and G. J. Milburn, Entangling optical and microwave cavity modes by means of a nanomechanical resonator, Phys. Rev. A 84, 042342 (2011).

Outline

Information

Sign In to Your Journals Account

Filter

Filter

Article Lookup

Enter a citation