Engineered dissipation can be used for quantum state preparation. This is achieved with a suitably engineered coupling to a dissipative cold reservoir usually formed by an electromagnetic mode. Here, we engineer a mechanical oscillator cooled close to its ground state into a cold dissipative reservoir for microwave photons in a superconducting circuit. We employ this engineered reservoir to implement a near-quantum-limited phase-preserving amplifier and a maser. Further, we experimentally demonstrate that engineered mechanical dissipation can result in nonreciprocal microwave transport.

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Bio

Alexey Feofanov is a team leader in the Laboratory of Photonics and Quantum Measurement (LPQM) at the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL). He received B.S. and M.S. degrees in Applied Physics from the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology and his Ph.D. in physics from Karlsruhe Institute of Technology. At the LPQM, he leads projects in the field of superconducting quantum circuits, with a current focus on topics in microwave circuit optomechanics and microwave-to-optical quantum coherent frequency conversion.