Opening a quantum communication channel in a chiral lattice for photons

Superconducting quantum bits and microwave cavity resonators provide a platform for constructing synthetic quantum materials which leverages the strong coupling between superconducting qubits and cavities and offers the option to introduce topology through physical modifications to an engineered system. We have previously [1] realized a quarter-flux Hoftsadter lattice for microwave photons from a 2D array of superconducting cavities and have coupled this topological photonic metamaterial to a single superconducting transmon qubit, exploring cavity quantum electrodynamics in this chiral system [2]. Here we couple two nonlinearities to this photonic lattice and share progress towards demonstrating qubit-qubit communication via a chiral lattice edge channel. Addition of more nonlinearities supplies access to photon-photon interactions and develops an avenue towards combining topology and many-body physics in a synthetic material.

[1] Owens et al., Phys. Rev. A. 97, 013818, 2018.

[2] Owens et al., Nat. Phys. 18, 1048-1052, 2022.