Quantum-limited microwave amplifier

Project funded by Swedish Research Council (Project grant), grant 2016-04828_VR. Participating organisations named by the source: Chalmers University of Technology. Funded amount: SEK 3,200,000, as stated by the source. Runs 2017-01-01 to 2020-12-31. Keywords: Naturvetenskap, Natural Sciences, Fysik, Physical Sciences, Den kondenserade materiens fysik, Condensed Matter Physics. Source: OpenAIRE Graph, from the funder's project data (collected by OpenAIRE on 2025-12-06); national funding data, not CORDIS. Abstract given by the source: The main purpose of any amplifier, as the name suggests, is to amplify a small signal. In practice, how small signal an amplifier can deal with depends on the amplifier’s noise properties: if the noise added by amplifier exceeds the output signal the amplification is essentially pointless. The fundamental limit for the minimum added noise is set by quantum fluctuations at the input. If referred to this ultimate noise limit, the state-of-art transistor amplifiers are, in a fact, rather mediocre performers with the added noise 10-20 times above the quantum limit.A quantum-limited amplification was recently achieved in the optical domain with Traveling Wave parametric Amplifier (TWA) and the great TWA potential for next-generation telecommunication systems have already been demonstrated. The race is now on to reach an ultimate performance in microwave domain. Our research team recently demonstrated a microwave TWA with 6 dB gain; the design which is arguably the closest approach to a practical universal quantum limited amplifier reported so far.The current project aims to deliver, in four years from now, an industrial-grade solution for a quantum-limited microwave amplifier. This development will immediately benefit many frontier research directions and technologies including, but not limited to, deep-space astronomy, space-born missions, and the whole emerging field of quantum communication and information processing.

Original source.

Source: OpenAIRE Graph: projects of national funders, OpenAIRE, from the project data of Swedish Research Council. Retrieved 2026-10-28. Licence: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 (OpenAIRE Graph). Selected metadata, adapted presentation; the publisher's record is authoritative. No endorsement by the source is implied. Licence: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 (CC BY 4.0).

AI-assisted summary: The project "Quantum-limited microwave amplifier" is funded by the Swedish Research Council with a grant of SEK 3,200,000, running from January 1, 2017, to December 31, 2020, involving Chalmers University of Technology. Suggested technology pillar: sensing. Generated by AI from the public source text; it may contain errors and the original source is authoritative.