The very small size of optical nonlinearities places strict restrictions on the types of novel physics one can explore. This work describes how a single artificial multilevel Cooper pair box molecule, interacting with a superconducting microwave coplanar resonator, when suitably driven, can generate extremely large optical nonlinearities at microwave frequencies, with no associated absorption. We describe how the giant self-Kerr effect can be detected by measuring the second-order correlation function and quadrature squeezing spectrum.

• Received 2 February 2009

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.103.150503