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Quantum Josephson junction circuits and the dawn of artificial atoms

Nature Physics volume 16, pages 234–237 (2020)Cite this article

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In 1985, experiments revealed the quantum behaviour of a macroscopic degree of freedom: the phase difference across a Josephson junction. The authors recount the history of this milestone for the development of superconducting quantum circuits.

Do macroscopic degrees of freedom obey quantum mechanics? During the first six decades of quantum mechanics the answer to this question was never addressed experimentally. Quantum mechanics was known to survive at the macroscopic level only through collective phenomena such as superfluidity, superconductivity, flux quantization and the Josephson effect. Although these phenomena are conventionally described as ‘macroscopic’, they are in fact classical manifestations on a macroscopic scale of the combination of large numbers of microscopic variables, each governed by quantum mechanics. The faceting of certain crystals, such as quartz, revealing the covalent bonds between constituent atoms, represents an elementary example of this class of quantum phenomena exhibited on a macroscopic scale.

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Fig. 1: The Josephson junction and its measurement circuit.
Fig. 2: Cubic potential in which the macroscopic phase difference δ of the junction evolves quantum mechanically.
Fig. 3: Resonances induced by microwaves at 2.0 GHz.
Fig. 4: Resonances induced by microwaves at four different frequencies.

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Acknowledgements

M.H.D. acknowledges support from the Army Research Office and Air Force Office of Scientific Research.

Author information

Author notes

  1. These authors contributed equally: John M. Martinis, Michel H. Devoret, John Clarke.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Physics, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA, USA

    John M. Martinis

  2. Google, Inc., Santa Barbara, CA, USA

    John M. Martinis

  3. Department of Applied Physics, Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA

    Michel H. Devoret

  4. Department of Physics, University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA

    John Clarke

Authors
  1. John M. Martinis
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  2. Michel H. Devoret
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  3. John Clarke
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Correspondence to John Clarke.

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Martinis, J.M., Devoret, M.H. & Clarke, J. Quantum Josephson junction circuits and the dawn of artificial atoms. Nat. Phys. 16, 234–237 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41567-020-0829-5

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