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A gate-tunable graphene Josephson parametric amplifier

Nature Nanotechnology volume 17, pages 1153–1158 (2022)Cite this article

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Abstract

With a large portfolio of elemental quantum components, superconducting quantum circuits have contributed to advances in microwave quantum optics1. Of these elements, quantum-limited parametric amplifiers2,3,4 are essential for low noise readout of quantum systems whose energy range is intrinsically low (tens of μeV)5,6. They are also used to generate non-classical states of light that can be a resource for quantum enhanced detection7. Superconducting parametric amplifiers, such as quantum bits, typically use a Josephson junction as a source of magnetically tunable and dissipation-free non-linearity. In recent years, efforts have been made to introduce semiconductor weak links as electrically tunable non-linear elements, with demonstrations of microwave resonators and quantum bits using semiconductor nanowires8,9, a two-dimensional electron gas10, carbon nanotubes11 and graphene12,13. However, given the challenge of balancing non-linearity, dissipation, participation and energy scale, parametric amplifiers have not yet been implemented with a semiconductor weak link. Here, we demonstrate a parametric amplifier leveraging a graphene Josephson junction and show that its working frequency is widely tunable with a gate voltage. We report gain exceeding 20 dB and noise performance close to the standard quantum limit. Our results expand the toolset for electrically tunable superconducting quantum circuits. They also offer opportunities for the development of quantum technologies such as quantum computing, quantum sensing and for fundamental science14.

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Fig. 1: Graphene Josephson junction embedded in a microstrip superconducting microwave resonator.
Fig. 2: Non-linearity of a microwave resonator with an embedded graphene Josephson junction.
Fig. 3: Parametric amplification in a microwave resonator with an embedded graphene Josephson junction.
Fig. 4: Performance of the resonant Josephson parametric amplifier.

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Data availability

The data that support the findings of this study are available in Zenodo with the identifier https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7025633.

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Acknowledgements

We thank J. Aumentado and F. Lecocq (National Institute of Standards and Technology, Boulder, CO, USA) for providing the SNTJ and for discussions. This work was supported by the French National Research Agency (ANR) in the framework of the Graphmon project (grant no. ANR-19-CE47-0007). K.W. and T.T. acknowledge support from JSPS KAKENHI (grant nos. 19H05790, 20H00354 and 21H05233). J.R. acknowledges E. Eyraud and W. Wernsdorfer for help with the cryogenic system. We acknowledge the work of J. Jarreau, L. Del-Rey and D. Dufeu for the design and fabrication of the sample holders and other mechanical pieces used in the cryogenic system. We thank the Nanofab group at Institut Néel for help with device fabrication. We thank K.W. Murch and B. Sacépé for discussions and comments on the manuscript.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Université Grenoble Alpes, CNRS, Grenoble INP, Institut Néel, Grenoble, France

    Guilliam Butseraen, Arpit Ranadive, Nicolas Aparicio, Kazi Rafsanjani Amin, Abhishek Juyal, Martina Esposito, Nicolas Roch & Julien Renard

  2. Université Grenoble Alpes, CEA, LETI, Grenoble, France

    Kazi Rafsanjani Amin

  3. CNR-SPIN Complesso di Monte S. Angelo, Napoli, Italy

    Martina Esposito

  4. Research Center for Functional Materials, National Institute for Materials Science, Tsukuba, Japan

    Kenji Watanabe

  5. International Center for Materials Nanoarchitectonics, National Institute for Materials Science, Tsukuba, Japan

    Takashi Taniguchi

  6. Université Grenoble Alpes, CEA, Grenoble INP, IRIG-PHELIQS, Grenoble, France

    François Lefloch

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  1. Guilliam Butseraen
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Contributions

K.W. and T.T. grew the h-BN crystals. G.B. and J.R. designed the samples. G.B. and N.A. fabricated the devices. G. B., A.J. and J.R. performed d.c. measurements. G.B. performed the microwave measurements with help from K.R.A. and J.R. Noise measurements were realized by G.B., A.R. and M.E. with help from N.R. and J.R. Data analysis was performed by G.B. with help from A.R., N.R. and J.R. The project was supervised by F.L. and J.R. G.B. prepared the figures of the manuscript. J.R. wrote the manuscript with input from all authors.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Julien Renard.

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Competing interests

N.R. is founder and shareholder of Silent Waves.

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Nature Nanotechnology thanks Kin Chung Fong, Zhuoqun Hao and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Extended data

Extended Data Fig. 1 Design of the device.

a) Schematic of the device (to scale). A resonator (purple) is capacitively coupled to a transmission line (red) as shown in the left inset. A side gate (green) is used to tune the graphene Josephson junction (gJJ) (located in the center of the resonator) critical current. The right inset shows an optical picture of the gJJ. Additional lines (blue) are connected close to the center of the resonator to perform d.c. measurements on the gJJ. They are located 20 μm away from the junction. Lines between the pads and the thick lines are bonding wires. (b) Phase of S11 measured and fitted for a bare device where the gJJ is replaced by a short between the two parts of the resonator.

Extended Data Fig. 2 Graphene Josephson junction d.c. properties.

(a) Differential conductance with respect to the bias voltage. The dark line indicates the position of the first multiple Andreev reflection (MAR) peak at a voltage value of 2Δ/e. (b) Differential resistance as a function of the gate voltage measured at 25 mK with a bias current of 7μA. (c) eRnIc/Δ product with respect to the gate voltage.

Extended Data Fig. 3 Experimental setups.

Noise measurement setup (a) and d.c. measurement setup (b). Both the setups use a dilution fridge and allow for standard microwave measurements.

Extended Data Fig. 4 Added noise of the graphene Josephson parametric amplifier.

(a) and (b) extracted added noise with respect to the frequency. The blue curve represents the extracted added noise from the graphene Josephson parametric amplifier (gJPA) measurement. The purple curve represents the added noise extracted by the printed circuit board (PCB) measurement, that is, the chain noise without the JPA. The red curve represents the added noise computed from the added noise extracted by the PCB measurement and the measured gain of the gJPA in the limit where the JPA does not add noise, that is, the expected noise at the standard quantum limit (SQL).

Supplementary information

Supplementary Information

Supplementary Figs. 1–11 and Discussion (Sections 1–6).

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Butseraen, G., Ranadive, A., Aparicio, N. et al. A gate-tunable graphene Josephson parametric amplifier. Nat. Nanotechnol. 17, 1153–1158 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41565-022-01235-9

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