Emission of Photon Multiplets by a dc-Biased Superconducting Circuit

G. C. Ménard; A. Peugeot; C. Padurariu; C. Rolland; B. Kubala; Y. Mukharsky; Z. Iftikhar; C. Altimiras; P. Roche; H. le Sueur; P. Joyez; D. Vion; D. Esteve; J. Ankerhold; F. Portier

doi:10.1103/PhysRevX.12.021006

Emission of Photon Multiplets by a dc-Biased Superconducting Circuit

G. C. Ménard, A. Peugeot, C. Padurariu, C. Rolland, B. Kubala, Y. Mukharsky, Z. Iftikhar, C. Altimiras, P. Roche, H. le Sueur, P. Joyez, D. Vion, D. Esteve, J. Ankerhold, F. Portier

DOI 10.1103/PhysRevX.12.021006 · Physical Review X

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Abstract

We observe the emission of bunches of k≥1 photons by a circuit made of a microwave resonator in series with a voltage-biased tunable Josephson junction. The bunches are emitted at specific values Vk of the bias voltage, for which each Cooper pair tunneling across the junction creates exactly k photons in the resonator. The latter is a microfabricated spiral coil which resonates and leaks photons at 4.4 GHz in a measurement line. Its characteristic impedance of 1.97 kΩ is high enough to reach a strong junction-resonator coupling and a bright emission of the k-photon bunches. We show that a rotating-wave approximation treatment of the system accounts quantitatively for the observed radiation intensity, from k=1 to 6, and over 3 orders of magnitude when varying the Josephson energy EJ. We also measure the second-order correlation function of the radiated microwave to determine its Fano factor Fk, which in the low EJ limit confirms with Fk≃k the emission of k-photon bunches. At larger EJ, a more complex behavior is observed in quantitative agreement with numerical simulations.