  Degenerate parametric amplifiers (DPAs) exhibit the unique property of
phase-sensitive gain and can be used to noiselessly amplify small signals or
squeeze field fluctuations beneath the vacuum level. In the microwave domain,
these amplifiers have been utilized to measure qubits in elementary quantum
processors, search for dark matter, facilitate high-sensitivity spin resonance
spectroscopy and have even been proposed as the building blocks for a
measurement based quantum computer. Until now, microwave DPAs have almost
exclusively been made from nonlinear Josephson junctions, which exhibit
high-order nonlinearities that limit their dynamic range and squeezing
potential. In this work we investigate a new microwave DPA that exploits a
nonlinearity engineered from kinetic inductance. The device has a simple design
and displays a dynamic range that is four orders of magnitude greater than
state-of-the-art Josephson DPAs. We measure phase sensitive gains up to 50 dB
and demonstrate a near-quantum-limited noise performance. Additionally, we show
that the higher-order nonlinearities that limit other microwave DPAs are almost
non-existent for this amplifier, which allows us to demonstrate its exceptional
squeezing potential by measuring the deamplification of coherent states by as
much as 26 dB.
