We study a superconducting stripline resonator (SSR) made of niobium, which is integrated with a superconducting interference device (SQUID). The large nonlinear inductance of the SQUID gives rise to a strong Kerr nonlinearity in the response of the SSR, which in turn results in strong coupling between different modes of the SSR. We experimentally demonstrate that such intermode coupling gives rise to dephasing of microwave photons. The dephasing rate depends periodically on the external magnetic flux applied to the SQUID, where the largest rate is obtained at half integer values (in units of the flux quantum). To account for our result we compare our findings with theory and find good agreement.

• Received 18 August 2009

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.81.174525