Adiabatic passage with superconducting nanocircuits

Superconducting nanocircuits are macroscopic solid-state systems that exhibit quantum-coherent dynamics. In particular it is possible to design such circuits that display the behavior of few-level systems. It is an interesting question whether the scheme of stimulated Raman adiabatic passage (STIRAP) can be transferred to these systems. Here we discuss various possibilities to achieve quantum control with this powerful method for devices in the charge regime and assess the effect of decoherence on their functionality. (c) 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.