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Letter

Nature Physics 4, 612–616 (1 August 2008) | doi:10.1038/nphys1019

Sisyphus cooling and amplification by a superconducting qubit

M. Grajcar , S. H. W. van der Ploeg , A. Izmalkov , E. Il|[rsquo]|ichev , H.-G. Meyer , A. Fedorov , A. Shnirman & Gerd Sch|[ouml]|n

Laser cooling of atoms paved the way for remarkable achievements in quantum optics, including Bose–Einstein condensation and trapping in optical lattices. Recently, superconducting qubits—micrometre-size superconducting circuits—were shown to act as artificial atoms, exhibiting quantum effects such as Rabi oscillations and Ramsey fringes.