Landau-Zener population control and dipole measurement of a two level system bath

Abstract

Tunneling two level systems (TLS), present in dielectrics at low temperatures, have been recently studied for fundamental understanding and superconducting device development. According to a recent theory by Burin \textit{et al.}, the TLS bath of any amorphous dielectric experiences a distribution of Landau-Zener transitions if exposed to simultaneous fields. In this experiment we measure amorphous insulating films at millikelvin temperatures with a microwave field and a swept electric field bias using a superconducting resonator. We find that the maximum dielectric loss per microwave photon with the simultaneous fields is approximately the same as that in the equilibrium state, in agreement with the generic material theory. In addition, we find that the loss depends on the fields in a way which allows for the separate extraction of the TLS bath dipole moment and density of states. This method allows for the study of the TLS dipole moment in a diverse set of disordered films, and provides a technique for continuously inverting their population.