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Transmon Architecture for Emission and Detection of Single Microwave Photons

Daniel L. Campbell, Stephen McCoy, Melinda Andrews, Alexander Madden, Viva R. Horowitz, Bakir Husremović, Samuel Marash, Christopher Nadeau, Man Nguyen, Michael Senatore, Samuel Schwab, Erin Sheridan, Matthew D. LaHaye·January 16, 2026
Quantum Physics

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Abstract

We showcase the recently developed double transmon coupler (DTC) circuit as a compact, drop-in, tunable and transition-selective link between an otherwise coherent transmon and the continuum of modes in a waveguide. We use these transmon-DTC devices as transmon emitter/dectectors (TEDs) for microwave photons. We highlight the flexibility of these devices by sending photons from a source TED to a measurement TED using a meter of coaxial cable and a circulator, each TED with nominally identical circuit parameters. We detect $60\,\%$ of the photons using this setup where we infer that $95\,\%$ of the photons at the input of the measurement TED are detected. Reset and photon emission/detection each require about $2\,μ$s, for a minimum protocol duration of $4\,μ$s, for our choice of TED parameters. Transmon-waveguide links like the DTC serve an important role in quantum information processors: they provide a mechanism for unconditional fast reset, metrology, and as nascent quantum communication interfaces for quantum networking.

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