Abstract: All classical networking, sensing, and information processing systems rely on the conversion of information from one form to another. This capability is currently lacking in many quantum systems. In this tutorial, I will focus on one aspect of this problem, and provide an introduction to how we hope to develop devices to connect microwave frequency superconducting quantum machines to optical networks. I will start with motivation, go on to the basic physics of the problem and important challenges with particular focus on the energy per qubit [1]. Then I will discuss approaches based on electro-optics [2], piezo-optomechanics [3], as well as mm-waves [4].

Bio: Amir Safavi-Naeini has been an Associate Professor in Applied Physics at Stanford University since 2014. He received his B.A.Sc. in Electrical Engineering at the University of Waterloo in Canada in 2008, and his Ph.D. in Applied Physics at the California Institute of Technology in 2013. In his work at Caltech and Stanford, Safavi-Naeini developed optomechanical devices resulting in some of the first experiments showing quantum optomechanical phenomena. The current focus of his group's research is developing photonic, phononic, and microwave devices for quantum sensing, communications, and information processing. He is the author of more than 50 journal papers and co-inventor on 5 US patents/applications. He has been awarded the Terman (2015, 2018), Hellman (2016), Packard (2017), Sloan (2020) fellowships, DARPA Young Faculty Award (2019), and the NSF CAREER award (2020).

 [1] Safavi-Naeini, Amir H., et al. "Controlling phonons and photons at the wavelength scale: integrated photonics meets integrated phononics." Optica 6.2 (2019): 213-232.

 [2] McKenna, Timothy P., et al. "Cryogenic microwave-to-optical conversion using a triply resonant lithium-niobate-on-sapphire transducer." Optica 7.12 (2020): 1737-1745.

 [3] Jiang, Wentao, et al. "Efficient bidirectional piezo-optomechanical transduction between microwave and optical frequency." Nature communications 11.1 (2020): 1-7.

 [4] Pechal, Marek, and Amir H. Safavi-Naeini. "Millimeter-wave interconnects for microwave-frequency quantum machines." Physical Review A 96.4 (2017): 042305., Stokowski, Hubert, et al. "Towards millimeter-wave based quantum networks." 2019 44th International Conference on Infrared, Millimeter, and Terahertz Waves (IRMMW-THz). IEEE, 2019.

This seminar is sponsored by the Department of Applied Physics and the Ginzton Laboratory