The development of quantum acoustics has enabled the cooling of mechanical objects to their quantum ground state, generation of mechanical Fock-states, and Schrödinger cat states. Such demonstrations have made mechanical resonators attractive candidates for quantum information processing, metrology, and macroscopic tests of quantum mechanics. However, generating large-amplitude phonon states in quantum acoustic systems has been elusive. In this work, a single superconducting qubit coupled to a high-overtone bulk acoustic resonator is used to generate a large phonon population in an acoustic mode of a high-overtone resonator. We observe extended ringdowns of the qubit, confirming the generation of a large amplitude phonon state, and also observe an upper threshold behavior, a consequence of phonon quenching predicted by our model. This work provides a key tool for generating arbitrary phonon states in circuit quantum acoustodynamics, which is important for fundamental and quantum information applications.

The field of quantum acoustics studies high frequency sounds generated at low temperatures such that quantum mechanical effects become relevant. The studies mainly revolves around propagating quantized sound waves, or phonons, a collective excitation of atoms in solids or liquids. In quantum acoustics, the engineering and design tools described by circuit quantum acoustodynamics (cQAD) are used to develop quantum acoustic devices that are coupled to superconducting qubits. cQAD enabled the demonstrations of quantum ground state cooling mechanical objects, generating mechanical Fock-states, and Schrödinger cat states of motion. This makes quantum acoustic devices appealing candidates for applications such as quantum metrology, information processing, and quantum memory. This thesis focuses on the coupling between a planar superconducting transmon qubit and a high-overtone bulk acoustic resonator (HBAR) and explore its possibilities. Here,experimental demonstrations are shown where the transmon is used to drive the HBAR into a phonon lasing state making it a superconducting single-atom phonon laser. Furthermore, the transmon-HBAR device is used to probe the nature of ghost modes observed in strongly driven nonlinear systems.

Quantum acoustics is an emerging platform for hybrid quantum technologies enabling quantum coherent control of mechanical vibrations. High-overtone bulk acoustic resonators (HBARs) represent an attractive mechanical implementation of quantum acoustics due to their potential for exceptionally high mechanical coherence. Here, we demonstrate an implementation of high-coherence HBAR quantum acoustics integrated with a planar superconducting qubit architecture, demonstrating an acoustically induced-transparency regime of high cooperativity and weak coupling, analogous to the electrically induced transparency in atomic physics. Demonstrating high-coherence quantum acoustics with planar superconducting devices enables interesting applications for acoustic resonators in quantum technologies.