Strong microwave squeezing above 1 Tesla and 1 Kelvin

• Published in: Nature communications Vol. 15; no. 1; p. 4229
• Main Authors: Vaartjes, Arjen, Kringhøj, Anders, Vine, Wyatt, Day, Tom, Morello, Andrea, Pla, Jarryd J.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Nature Publishing Group UK 18.05.2024; Nature Publishing Group; Nature Portfolio
• Subjects: 639/766/1130/1064; 639/766/483/3925; Components; Compressing; Critical temperature; Dark matter; Gravitational waves; Gravity; High temperature; Humanities and Social Sciences; Inductance; Insertion loss; Magnetic field; Magnetic fields; Microwave frequencies; multidisciplinary; Noise; Noise levels; Noise reduction; Optical components; Parametric amplifiers; Science; Science (multidisciplinary); Squeezed states (quantum theory); Thermal environments; Vacuum
• ISSN: 2041-1723; 2041-1723
• DOI: 10.1038/s41467-024-48519-3

Squeezed states of light have been used extensively to increase the precision of measurements, from the detection of gravitational waves to the search for dark matter. In the optical domain, high levels of vacuum noise squeezing are possible due to the availability of low loss optical components and high-performance squeezers. At microwave frequencies, however, limitations of the squeezing devices and the high insertion loss of microwave components make squeezing vacuum noise an exceptionally difficult task. Here we demonstrate direct measurements of high levels of microwave squeezing. We use an ultra-low loss setup and weakly-nonlinear kinetic inductance parametric amplifiers to squeeze microwave noise 7.8(2) dB below the vacuum level. The amplifiers exhibit a resilience to magnetic fields and permit the demonstration of large squeezing levels inside fields of up to 2 T. Finally, we exploit the high critical temperature of our amplifiers to squeeze a warm thermal environment, achieving vacuum level noise at a temperature of 1.8 K. These results enable experiments that combine squeezing with magnetic fields and permit quantum-limited microwave measurements at elevated temperatures, significantly reducing the complexity and cost of the cryogenic systems required for such experiments. At the quantum limit, vacuum fluctuations determine the precision with which a signal can be measured. In this work the authors use a technique known as squeezing to greatly reduce the vacuum fluctuation noise present at microwave frequencies.