Sisyphus cooling and amplification by a superconducting qubit

Understand

Laser cooling of the atomic motion paved the way for remarkable achievements in the fields of quantum optics and atomic physics, including Bose-Einstein condensation and the trapping of atoms in optical lattices.

• More recently superconducting qubits were shown to act as artificial two-level atoms, displaying Rabi oscillations, Ramsey fringes, and further quantum effects.
• Coupling such qubits to resonators brought the superconducting circuits into the realm of quantum electrodynamics (circuit QED).
• It opened the perspective to use superconducting qubits as micro-coolers or to create a population inversion in the qubit to induce lasing behavior of the resonator.