Qubit-assisted transduction for a detection of surface acoustic waves near the quantum limit

We demonstrate ultra-sensitive measurement of fluctuations in a surface-acoustic-wave~(SAW) resonator using a hybrid quantum system consisting of the SAW resonator, a microwave (MW) resonator and a superconducting qubit. The nonlinearity of the driven qubit induces parametric coupling, which up-converts the excitation in the SAW resonator to that in the MW resonator. Thermal fluctuations of the SAW resonator near the quantum limit are observed in the noise spectroscopy in the MW domain.