High-Efficiency Tunable Microwave Photon Detector Based on a Semiconductor Double Quantum Dot Coupled to a Superconducting High-Impedance Cavity

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates a nearly 70% efficient microwave photon detector using a semiconductor double quantum dot coupled to a high-impedance superconducting cavity, advancing quantum sensing and information processing.

Contribution

It introduces a hybrid semiconductor-superconducting system with optimized architecture for high-efficiency microwave photon detection in the single-photon regime.

Findings

Achieved ~70% detection efficiency for microwave photons.

Demonstrated coherent excitation of a DQD qubit by cavity photons.

Characterized system performance over 3-5.2 GHz frequency range.

Abstract

High-efficiency single-photon detection in the microwave domain is a key enabling technology for quantum sensing, communication, and information processing. However, the extremely low energy of microwave photons (~{\mu}eV) presents a fundamental challenge, preventing direct photon-to-charge conversion as achieved in optical systems using semiconductors. Semiconductor quantum dot (QD) charge qubits offer a compelling solution due to their highly tunable energy levels in the microwave regime, enabling coherent coupling with single photons. In this work, we demonstrate microwave photon detection with an efficiency approaching 70% in the single-photon regime. We use a hybrid system comprising a double quantum dot (DQD) charge qubit electrostatically defined in a GaAs/AlGaAs heterostructure, coupled to a high-impedance Josephson junction (JJ) array cavity. We systematically optimize the hybrid device architecture to maximize the conversion efficiency, leveraging the strong charge-photon coupling and the tunable DQD tunnel coupling rates. Incoming cavity photons coherently excite the DQD qubit, which in turn generates a measurable electrical current, realizing deterministic photon-to-charge conversion. Moreover, by exploiting the independent tunability of both the DQD transition energy and the cavity resonance frequency, we characterize the system efficiency over a range of 3-5.2 GHz. Our results establish semiconductor-based cavity-QED architectures as a scalable and versatile platform for efficient microwave photon detection, opening new avenues for quantum microwave optics and hybrid quantum information technologies.