A mechanical quantum memory for microwave photons
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1.
California Institute of Technology
Abstract
Superconducting qubits possess outstanding capabilities for processing quantum information in the microwave domain; however they have limited coherence times. An interface between photons and phonons could allow quantum information to be stored in long-lived mechanical oscillators. Here, we introduce a platform that relies on electrostatic forces in nanoscale structures to achieve strong coupling between a superconducting qubit and a nanomechanical oscillator with an energy decay time (T1) of approximately 25 ms, well beyond those achieved in integrated superconducting circuits. We use quantum operations in this system to investigate the microscopic origins of mechanical decoherence and mitigate its impact. By using two-pulse dynamical decoupling sequences, we can extend the coherence time (T2) from 64 μs to 1 ms. These findings establish that mechanical oscillators can act as quantum memories for superconducting devices, with potential future applications in quantum computing, sensing and transduction.
Acknowledgement
We acknowledge O. Painter, M. Kalaee, H. Zhao, C. Joshi, F. Yang, P. Shah and W. Chen for helpful discussions. This work was supported by the AFOSR (Award No. FA9550-23-1-0062) and the NSF (Award Nos. 2137776 and 2238058). A.B.B. gratefully acknowledges support from the Eddleman Graduate Fellowship. H.T. gratefully acknowledges support from an IQIM Postdoctoral Fellowship.
Copyright and License
Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.
Copyright © 2025, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Limited
Supplemental Material
Supplementary Information
Supplementary Sections A–K, Figs. 1–16 and Table 1.
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Extended Data Table 1 Summary of device parameters
Data Availability
The source data used to generate the plots in the paper are available via Zenodo at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.15069397 (ref. 68). Other datasets produced or examined in this study can be obtained from the corresponding author (M.M.) upon reasonable request.
Contributions
These authors contributed equally: Alkım B. Bozkurt, Omid Golami.
M.M., A.B.B. and O.G. conceived and designed the experiment. Y.Y. performed the numerical optimization of the devices. A.B.B., O.G. and H.T. fabricated the devices. A.B.B., O.G. and M.M. conducted the measurements and analysed the data. A.B.B., O.G. and M.M. wrote the paper with input from all authors. M.M. supervised the project.
Conflict of Interest
M.M., A.B.B. and O.G. acknowledge a provisional patent application that draws on the work described in this manuscript. The other authors declare no competing interests.
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Additional details
Related works
- Is new version of
- Working Paper: arXiv:2412.08006 (arXiv)
Funding
- United States Air Force Office of Scientific Research
- FA9550-23-1-0062
- National Science Foundation
- 2137776
- National Science Foundation
- 2238058
- California Institute of Technology
- Eddleman Graduate Fellowship
- California Institute of Technology
- IQIM Postdoctoral Fellowship
Dates
- Accepted
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2025-06-17Accepted
- Available
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2025-08-13Published online