A Dissipatively Stabilized Mott Insulator of Photons

Understand

Superconducting circuits are a competitive platform for quantum computation because they offer controllability, long coherence times and strong interactions - properties that are essential for the study of quantum materials comprising microwave photons.

• However, intrinsic photon losses in these circuits hinder the realization of quantum many-body phases.
• Here we use superconducting circuits to explore strongly correlated quantum matter by building a Bose-Hubbard lattice for photons in the strongly interacting regime.
• We develop a versatile method for dissipative preparation of incompressible many-body phases through reservoir engineering and apply it to our system to stabilize a Mott insulator of photons against losses.