Bypassing the filtering challenges in microwave-optical quantum transduction through optomechanical four-wave mixing

Abstract

Microwave-optical quantum transduction is a key enabling technology in quantum networking, but has been plagued by a formidable technical challenge. As most microwave-optical-transduction techniques rely on three-wave mixing processes, the processes consume photons from a driving telecom-band (pump) laser to convert input microwave photons into telecom-band photons detuned from the laser by this microwave frequency. However, cleanly separating out single photons detuned only a few GHz away from a classically bright laser in the same spatial mode requires frequency filters of unprecedented extinction over a very narrow transition band, straining the capabilities of today's technology. Instead of confronting this challenge directly, we show how one may achieve the same transduction objective with comparable efficiency using a four-wave mixing process in which $pairs$ of pump photons are consumed to produce transduced optical photons widely separated in frequency from the pump. We develop this process by considering higher-order analogues of photoelasticity and electrostriction than those used in conventional optomechanics, and examine how the efficiency of this process can be made to exceed conventional optomechanical couplings.

5 pages + 2 more for appendices, and 1 figure

References in corpus (16)

• Quantum transduction of optical photons from a superconducting qubit
• Development of Quantum InterConnects for Next-Generation Information Technologies
• Perspectives on quantum transduction
• Cavity piezo-mechanics for superconducting-nanophotonic quantum interface
• Optomechanical quantum teleportation
• Continuous wideband microwave-to-optical converter based on room-temperature Rydberg atoms
• Optically-Heralded Entanglement of Superconducting Systems in Quantum Networks
• Introduction to the Absolute Brightness and Number Statistics in Spontaneous Parametric Down-Conversion
• An integrated microwave-to-optics interface for scalable quantum computing
• Microwave-to-optical conversion via four-wave-mixing in a cold ytterbium ensemble
• High frequency electro-optic measurement of strained silicon racetrack resonators
• Why you should not use the electric field to quantize in nonlinear optics
• On the Origin of the Second-Order Nonlinearity in Strained Si-SiN Structures
• Bidirectional microwave-optical transduction based on integration of high-overtone bulk acoustic resonators and photonic circuits
• Design of an ultra-low mode volume piezo-optomechanical quantum transducer
• Principles for Optimizing Quantum Transduction in Piezo-Optomechanical Systems