Piezomechanical scattering loss in electro-optics quantum transducers

Abstract: Quantum transduction between microwave and optical photons is essential for building scalable quantum networks, with electro-optics conversion emerging as a promising approach. Recent experiments, however, observe significant quality factor degradation in superconducting microwave cavities when realizing the electro optics transducers. Here, we identify the piezomechanical scattering, where microwave photon loss through phonon radiation into substrate, as a universal dissipation mechanism in these hybrid quantum devices. By establishing a direct analogy to Rayleigh scattering theory, we derive universal scaling laws governing phononic dissipation process. Our analysis reveals a fundamental trade-off that optimizing coherent transduction coupling inevitably increases dissipation, regardless of the configurations of microwave and optical cavities. We propose potential strategies to overcome this challenge. These findings establish piezomechanical scattering as a critical design constraint for quantum transducers and provide insights to optimize their performances toward practical quantum networking.