# Tunable and nonlinearity-enhanced dispersive-plus-dissipative coupling in photon-pressure circuits

**Authors:** Mohamad Kazouini, Janis Peter, Zisu Emily Guo, Benedikt Wilde, Kevin Uhl, Dieter Koelle, Reinhold Kleiner, Daniel Bothner

PMC · DOI: 10.1038/s41467-026-70459-3 · 2026-03-24

## TL;DR

This paper presents a new photon-pressure circuit platform that combines tunable dispersive and dissipative coupling, enhancing nonlinear interactions and enabling new quantum control possibilities.

## Contribution

The work introduces a nonlinearity-enhanced combination of dispersive and dissipative coupling in photon-pressure circuits with tunable parameters.

## Key findings

- The coupling rates scale stronger with pump photon number than the usual square root dependence.
- A Fano-like response is observed in photon-pressure induced transparency due to coupling interference.
- Dynamical backaction is modified, including a parametric instability from a red-detuned pump tone.

## Abstract

Photon-pressure circuits are the circuit implementation of the cavity optomechanical Hamiltonian and discussed for qubit readout, low-frequency quantum photonics and dark matter axion detection. Due to the enormous design flexibility of superconducting circuits, photon-pressure systems provide fascinating possibilities to explore unusual parameter regimes of the optomechanical Hamiltonian. Here, we report the realization of a photon-pressure platform, in which a GHz circuit interacts with a MHz circuit via a magnetic-flux-tunable combination of dispersive and dissipative photon-pressure. In addition, both coupling rates are considerably enhanced by nonlinearities of the GHz-mode, which leads to the multi-photon coupling rates scaling stronger with the pump photon number nc than the usual \documentclass[12pt]{minimal}
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				\begin{document}$$\sqrt{{n}_{\mathrm{c}}}$$\end{document}nc dependence. We demonstrate that interference of the two interaction paths leads to a Fano-like response in photon-pressure induced transparency, and that the dynamical backaction is considerably modified compared to the dispersive case, including a parametric instability caused by a red-detuned pump tone.

This work demonstrates a nonlinearity-enhanced combination of dispersive and dissipative coupling in photon-pressure circuits, a circuit-QED analog of optomechanics, and reveals how transparency and backaction are modified by coupling-interference. The results hold relevance for radiation-pressure systems, (quantum) control protocols and Hamiltonian simulation.

## Full-text entities

- **Diseases:** HF (MESH:D006316)
- **Chemicals:** Si3N4 (MESH:C032734), Nb (MESH:D009556), helium (MESH:D006371), Si (MESH:D012825), S (MESH:D013455), Flux (MESH:C040639), aluminum (MESH:D000535), SF6 (MESH:D013459), isopropanol (MESH:D019840), copper (MESH:D003300), HF (-), acetone (MESH:D000096), neon (MESH:D009356)

## Figures

5 figures with captions in the complete paper: https://tomesphere.com/paper/PMC13018200/full.md

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Source: https://tomesphere.com/paper/PMC13018200