Phys.org April 22, 2022
Proposals to combine microwave-frequency mechanical resonators with superconducting devices suggest the possibility of powerful quantum acoustic processors. At present the acoustic platforms lack processors capable of controlling the quantum states of several mechanical oscillators with a single qubit and the rapid quantum non-demolition measurements of mechanical states needed for error correction. Researchers at Stanford University used a superconducting qubit to control and read out the quantum state of a pair of nanomechanical resonators. Their device is capable of fast qubit–mechanics swap operations, which they used to deterministically manipulate the mechanical states. By placing the qubit into the strong dispersive regime with both mechanical resonators simultaneously, they determined the phonon number distributions of the resonators. Finally, they presented quantum tomography of the prepared nonclassical and entangled mechanical states. Their work represents a concrete step towards feedback-based operation of a quantum acoustic processor…read more. TECHNICAL ARTICLE
Device description. Credit: Nature volume 604, pages463–467 (2022)