Photo-induced superconducting diode effect via chiral cavity modes

TL;DR

This paper proposes a method to control superconducting diode effects using chiral cavity modes and photon exchange, enabling non-invasive, ultrafast, and on-chip tunable nonreciprocal responses in superconductors.

Contribution

It introduces a novel photo-control technique for superconducting nonreciprocities via chiral cavity modes, applicable to various superconductors and cavity designs.

Findings

Photon exchange with chiral modes induces orbital magnetization.

Demonstrates control of diode responses in twisted bilayer graphene.

Offers a non-invasive way to explore nonreciprocal quantum circuit functionalities.

Abstract

Time reversal symmetry breaking is an important facet of controlling nonreciprocal responses. Here, we propose a method of photo-control over superconducting diode-like nonreciprocities, where time reversal symmetry breaking is achieved via photon exchange with chiral cavity modes. We reveal the origin of the nonreciprocal superconducting response as the embedding of chirality in a many-body ground state through photon induced orbital magnetization. With twisted bilayer graphene (TBG) as an example, we demonstrate the general principles of photo-control of diode responses, which are valid for a wide range of superconductors and cavity designs. The cavity control of superconducting nonreciprocities, particularly in the microwave regime, offers a non-invasive means of exploring new functionalities in quantum circuits with ultrafast switching and on-chip integration. This control method can serve as an important contribution to the toolbox for nonreciprocal models in circuit quantum electrodynamics, primed to be harnessed for scalable and modular quantum devices.