Steven M. Girvin
Yale University
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Primary Section: 33, Applied Physical Sciences Secondary Section: 13, Physics Membership Type:
Member
(elected 2006)
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Research Interests
I am a theoretical condensed matter physicist with broad interests in quantum many-body problems, low-dimensional and mesoscopic systems and quantum computation. I am currently interested in nanomechanical systems, cold atomic gases, quantum optics and quantum computation. Most recently I have been working closely with Yale experimentalists Rob Schoelkopf and Michel Devoret developing 'circuit QED' a new paradigm of quantum optics and cavity QED for superconducting electrical circuits. Cavity quantum electrodynamics (cQED) is the study of photons trapped in a resonant cavity and interacting with atoms. In 'circuit QED' the resonant optical cavity is replaced by an ultra-small on-chip electrical circuit which acts as a microwave resonator and the atom is replaced by a Cooper pair box qubit (quantum bit). The Cooper pair box consists of two micron-scale superconducting islands connected by a Josephson tunnel junction. Each superconducting island holds tens to hundreds of billions of pairs of electrons and yet quantum excitations in which only a single additional pair of electrons tunnel through the junction from one island to the other can be readily detected. In addition to being a fundamental probe of QED in a new ultra-strong-coupling regime, this architecture holds promise for quantum computation.
