A single photon transistor based on superconducting systems

Published

May 12, 2014

Author(s)

Marco Manzoni, Florentin Reiter, Jacob Taylor, Anders Sorensen

Abstract

In analogy with electronic transistors, a single photon transistor is a device where the presence or absence of a single gate photon controls the propagation of a large number of signal photons [1, 2]. Such devices would represent a milestone in our ability to control light, but their realization is hampered by the weak interaction among photons. A promising route towards strong interactions at the single photon level consists of coupling propagating photons to individual atom- like systems [3-9]. The best realization of such a coupling has been achieved in the microwave regime where experiments have demonstrated an unprecedented control of the coupling between superconducting artificial atoms and microwave photons [10, 11]. In this letter we describe how to realize a single photon transistor based on existing superconducting technology. The resulting devices can be directly employed to efficiently detect individual itinerant microwave photons, and may find a range of applications within quantum information processing.

Citation

Nature Physics

Pub Type

Journals

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DOI Link

Keywords

quantum electronics, quantum information, quantum computation, photonics, microwave circuit, superconductivity

Citation

Manzoni, M. , Reiter, F. , Taylor, J. and Sorensen, A. (2014), A single photon transistor based on superconducting systems, Nature Physics, [online], https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.89.180502 (Accessed October 27, 2025)