Breakthroughs in Photonics 2012: Breakthroughs in Microwave Quantum Photonics in Superconducting Circuits

The latest breakthroughs in microwave quantum photonics in superconducting circuits are presented. Advancing technologies of Josephson junction quantum bits (qubits) have been applied to control and measurement of itinerant microwave fields. Methods to generate nonclassical microwave states such as single-photon states and squeezed states have been developed. Techniques to characterize those nonclassical itinerant states have also been established. They are ready to be combined to demonstrate various quantum protocols, which extend the possibilities of quantum information processing, quantum metrology, and quantum communications using superconducting circuits.