Quantum properties of a superposition state for a series RLC nanoelectronic circuit are investigated. Two displaced number states of the same amplitude but with opposite phases are considered as components of the superposition state. We have assumed that the capacitance of the system varies with time and a time-dependent power source is exerted on the system. The effects of displacement and a sinusoidal power source on the characteristics of the state are addressed in detail. Depending on the magnitude of the sinusoidal power source, the wave packets that propagate in charge( q )-space are more or less distorted. Provided that the displacement is sufficiently high, distinct interference structures appear in the plot of the time behavior of the probability density whenever the two components of the wave packet meet together. This is strong evidence for the advent of nonclassical properties in the system, that cannot be interpretable by the classical theory. Nonclassicality of a quantum system is not only a beneficial topic for academic interest in itself, but its results can be useful resources for quantum information and computation as well.
One of the greatest challenges for modern electronic science is miniaturizing electronic devices packed in IC chips towards an atomic scale. From fundamental quantum theories supported by elaborate experiments, it is well known that quantum effects are prominent as the transport dimension becomes small beyond the Fermi wavelength [ 1 , 2 ]. Hence, the understanding of quantum characteristics of nano systems is important in order for developing future technologies in the electronic industry relevant to nano dimension. As the scale of metallic electronic devices, whose electron-energy levels are continuous, reaches a nanometer, the energy levels may no longer be allowed to remain continuous but become discrete instead. Then, the devices may look like a low dimensional quantum systems in parts.
While the time behavior of charges in ideal electronic circuits, such as an LC circuit, is represented by a simple harmonic oscillator, a large part of intricate nanoelectronic circuits may belong to time-varying systems that are described by time-dependent Hamiltonians [ 3 – 5 ]. Rigorous mathematical techniques are crucial for exact treatment of time-dependent Hamiltonians. In a previous research [ 2 ], Choi et al. have investigated displaced squeezed number states of a two-dimensional nanoelectronic circuit. The extension of such research to superposed quantum states may not only be interesting but also has many useful applications in science [ 6 – 10 ]. According to this, superposition states composed of two displaced number states (DNSs) with an opposite or an arbitrary phase difference for quantum nanoelectronic circuits will be studied in this work. We consider a series RLC nanoelectronic circuit driven by a time-dependent power source. One may possibly treat a general series RLC nanoelectronic circuit, where R , L , and C vary with time. However, for the difficulty of mathematical treatment of such a complicated system, we regard the case that only the capacitance C is an arbitrary time function while R and L are constants. As well as it is more easier to vary the capacitance than to vary resistance and/or inductance, the electronic circuits that involve a time-varying capacitance have several applications in science and technology [ 11 – 15 ].
At first, quantum characteristics of the system will be studied regarding the displacement of number states. Then, the superposition of two DNSs [ 16 ] of the system will be investigated. Energy eigenvalues in number states for a quantized RLC nanoelectronic circuit are discrete and the corresponding energies dissipate like a classical state due to the existence of a resistor R which roles as a damping factor [ 17 ]. A class of interesting quantum states for a harmonic oscillator is superpositions (Schrödinger’s cat states) of two DNSs of the same amplitude with opposite phases. A novel application of DNSs is their use as a resource for establishing (single) qubit operations in quantum computations [ 18 ]. Displaced number states can also be implemented to realizing an irreversible analog of quantum gates, such as the Hadamard gate, and to optimizing such gates [ 19 ]. The DNSs follow sub-Poissonian statistics [ 20 ] and exhibit several pure quantum effects, such as the revival-collapse phenomenon [ 21 ] and the interference in the phase space [ 22 ].
The success of experimental setups of superposition states [ 23 ] provides evidence for a remarkable fact that a particular system could take two or several separate quantum states simultaneously. In general, superposition states exhibit nonclassical characters. Such characters can be potentially exploited to be essential resources in various quantum information processing, such as quantum computation [ 6 ], quantum teleportation [ 7 ], quantum communication [ 8 ], quantum cryptography [ 9 ], and dense-coding [ 10 ]. All these applicabilities of the nonclassical states are important in future technology of information science. However, there is a difficulty for maintaining such nonclassicality of a system due to the appearance of decoherence of states [ 24 ]. Various quantum properties of the system including nonclassicality associated with DNSs will be investigated here.
Due to the time-dependence of the Hamiltonian of the system, a conventional technique for quantizing the system, which is the separation of variables method, is unapplicable in this case. Hence, special techniques for quantizing the system in the superposition states are necessary. The invariant operator method and the unitary transformation method will be adopted for this purpose. The underlying idea for the invariant operator method is that the Schrödinger solutions of a time-varying system is represented in terms of the eigenstates of an invariant operator [ 25 ]. For this reason, it is necessary to derive eigenstates of the invariant operator in order to study quantum features of the system. We will introduce a quadratic invariant operator that can be obtained from its fundamental definition. The original invariant operator may be not a simple form due to the time-dependence of the system. For this reason, we will transform the original invariant operator to a simple form that does not contain time functions by adopting a unitary transformation technique. Then, the eigenstates of the transformed invariant operator may be easily identified due to their simplicities. The eigenstates of the transformed invariant operator will be inversely transformed to those in the original system in order to obtain the full wave functions in the superposition state. This is the main strategy that we will adopt in this work.
We consider the series RLC nanoelectronic circuit driven by a time-dependent electromotive force
The energy operator of a time-dependent Hamiltonian system (TDHS) is different from the Hamiltonian itself. The role of the Hamiltonian in the TDHS is limited to be the only one in that it generates the classical equation of motion [
26
]. For the present system, the energy operator is represented as [
27
]
When investigating a quantum system that is described by a time-dependent Hamiltonian, it is useful to introduce an invariant operator [
25
] as mentioned previously. From
Because the invariant operator given in Eq. (
5
) is somewhat complicated, it is necessary to simplify it for the convenience for further treatment. For this purpose, we use the unitary transformation technique. We introduce a suitable unitary operator which is [
31
]
Now, let us consider the following Schrödinger equations in the transformed system
It may be worthy to find quantum states that oscillate with time like classical ones. These states correspond to a class of a displaced state and are obtained by displacing number states with a displacement operator. We can put the displacement operator in terms of
It is interesting to study superpositions of two different quantum states on account of their widely acknowledged nonclassical properties. Amplitude interference that appears in the superposition states (Schrödinger cat states) is one of the most novel characteristics of quantum mechanics that has no analogue in classical mechanics. While superpositions of pure number states seldom share the coherence properties that are necessary in both fundamental experiments and practical implementations applicable to science and technology, a superposition of DNSs exhibits coherence properties and other interesting quantum statistical properties such as unusual oscillations in the quantum number distribution [ 33 ].
Consider a superposition of two DNSs,
Using Eq. (
24
), we can easily evaluate Eq. (
25
) to be
From the inverse transformation of the solutions given in Eq. (
33
), it is also possible to obtain the complete solutions in the original system:
The full wave functions, Eq. ( 38 ) with Eqs. ( 39 ) and ( 40 ), are very useful for studying the superposition properties of DNSs in the original system. It is well known that the wave function is a probability function that enables us to understand the characteristics of the nanoscale world and its concept constitutes the heart of quantum mechanics. We can estimate subsequent time behavior of charge carriers of the nanoelectronic circuit using the wave functions with some degree of certainty as far as quantum mechanics allows.
To see the time behavior of the state given in Eq. (
38
), let us consider a solvable case that the time-dependence of the capacitance and the electromotive force is given by
Probability density
The same as Fig.
1
c, but for the case that the driving electromotive force is not zero. The parameters
The effects of large values of
Fig. 1

Fig. 2

Fig. 3

A series RLC nanoelectronic circuit driven by an arbitrary power source was considered, where its capacitance is allowed to vary with time. The Hamiltonian of the system is constructed from Kirchhoff’s law and the corresponding quadratic invariant operator is introduced in order to study quantum characteristics of the system. As you can see from Eq. (
5
), the invariant operator is a somewhat complicated form to manage. In this case, we need to simplify it for further treatment using unitary transformation or canonical transformation. For this purpose, a unitary operator is introduced as shown in Eq. (
7
) with Eqs. (
8
)–(
10
). The transformed invariant operator
To promote the understanding of our consequence, our results are applied to a particular system that the time dependence of the capacitance is given by Eq. (
41
). The wave packet is somewhat distorted when a sinusoidal power source is exerted on the system. The corresponding probability densities are illustrated in Figs.
1
,
2
, and
3
for several values of displacing parameters
From Figs. 1 , 2 , and 3 , you can see interference structures that appear when the two components of the state meet together. This quantum interference is inherent to superposition states and is strong evidence for the signature of nonclassicality of the system, that we cannot find any analogous effects from classical systems [ 37 , 38 ]. A scheme for observing quantum interference via phase-sensitive amplification of a superposition state using a two-photon CEL (correlated emission laser) amplifier has been suggested by Zubairy and Qamar [ 39 ]. Superposition states are vulnerable to external interventions caused from the environment; hence, they can be easily corrupted by noisy or dissipative forces. This is a stumbling-block for achieving robust quantum computations on the basis of nonclassical features of superposition states through encoding logical qubits with a treatment of the states [ 40 , 41 ]. A number of proposals to overcome this major hurdle in quantum computing has been suggested so far [ 42 – 44 ]. The development of techniques for protecting quantum information from decoherence is crucial for realizing universal quantum computation.
J.R.C. wrote the paper and approved it.
This research was supported by the Basic Science Research Program through the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) funded by the Ministry of Education (Grant Nos.: NRF-2013R1A1A2062907 and NRF-2016R1D1A1A09919503).