An ultrahigh Finesse Fabry-Perot superconducting resonator as a photon box for cavity-QED experiments

Stefan Kuhr (1) , Sébastien Gleyzes (2) , Christine Guerlin (2) , Julien Bernu (2) , Ulrich Busk Hoff (2) , Samuel Deléglise (2) , Michel Brune (2) , Jean-Michel Raimond (2) , Serge Haroche (2) , Stefano Osnaghi (2) , E. Jacques (3) , P. Bosland (3) , B. Visentin (3)

1 Institut für Physik Johannes Gutenberg Universität
2 LKB (Lhomond) - Laboratoire Kastler Brossel
3 DAPNIA - Département d'Astrophysique, de physique des Particules, de physique Nucléaire et de l'Instrumentation Associée

We have built a microwave Fabry-Perot resonator made of diamond-machined copper mirrors coated with superconducting niobium. Its damping time (Tc = 130 ms at 51 GHz and 0.8 K) corresponds to a finesse of 4.6 e9, the highest ever reached for a Fabry-Perot in any frequency range. We have tested this resonator by sending across it two circular Rydberg atoms, the first emitting a photon and the second absorbing it after a delay of 1/10 s. This long storage time photon box opens novel perspectives for quantum information. It can be used to perform sequences of hundreds of gate operations on individual atomic qubits. A set-up with one or two photon boxes can store mesoscopic fields made of hundreds of photons for decoherence and non-locality studies.

Mots clés: cavity; superconductor; cavity QED

Domaines: Physique Quantique [quant-ph]

Stefan Kuhr, Sébastien Gleyzes, Christine Guerlin, Julien Bernu, Ulrich Busk Hoff, et al.. An ultrahigh Finesse Fabry-Perot superconducting resonator as a photon box for cavity-QED experiments. Applied Physics Letters, 2007, 90, pp.164101. ⟨10.1063/1.2724816⟩. ⟨hal-00120654v1⟩