Parametric amplification by coupled flux qubits
M. Rehák, P. Neilinger, M. Grajcar, G. Oelsner, U. Hübner, E. Il'ichev, H.-G. Meyer · Applied Physics Letters · 2014
We report parametric amplification of a microwave signal in a Kerr medium formed from superconducting qubits. Two mutually coupled flux qubits, embedded in the current antinode of a superconducting coplanar waveguide resonator, are used as a nonlinear element. Shared Josephson junctions provide the qubit-resonator coupling, resulting in a device with a tunable Kerr constant (up to 3 × 10−3) and a measured gain of about 20 dB. This arrangement represents a unit cell which can be straightforwardly extended to a quasi one-dimensional quantum metamaterial with large tunable Kerr nonlinearity, providing a basis for implementation of wide-band travelling wave parametric amplifiers.