Microwave-to-optical transduction with bulk acoustic resonators

The faithful transduction of quantum states between superconducting circuits and telecom frequency light would enable the distribution of quantum computation tasks and long-distance communication between separate quantum processors. The implementation of such a quantum transducer generally faces tradeoffs between crucial figures of merit such as efficiency, added noise, and bandwidth. It is therefore crucial to explore novel physical platforms that offer unique advantages and allow us to access new parameter regimes. I will present our progress on building a transducer based on bulk acoustic wave (BAW) resonators. These resonators have been shown to demonstrate very high quality factors and couple coherently to superconducting qubits and photonic cavities. We show that our BAW-based optomechanics system is largely immune to optical heating and systematically study the effect of optical photons on superconducting qubits. I will discuss how these results then inform the design and operation of our transducer system.