Observation of Quantum Motion of a Nanomechanical Resonator

Observation of Quantum Motion of a Nanomechanical Resonator

from PRL Editors’ Suggestions by Amir H. Safavi-Naeini, Jasper Chan, Jeff T. Hill, Thiago P. Mayer Alegre, Alex Krause, and Oskar Painter

Author(s): Amir H. Safavi-Naeini, Jasper Chan, Jeff T. Hill, Thiago P. Mayer Alegre, Alex Krause, and Oskar Painter

Selected for a Viewpoint in Physics PRL Editors' Suggestion In this Letter we use resolved sideband laser cooling to cool a mesoscopic mechanical resonator to near its quantum ground state (phonon occupancy 2.6±0.2), and observe the motional sidebands generated on a second probe laser. Asymmetry in the sideband amplitudes provides a direct measure of the dis…

[Phys. Rev. Lett. 108, 033602] Published Tue Jan 17, 2012

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Nature Physics. doi:10.1038/nphys2070

Authors: O. Arcizet, V. Jacques, A. Siria, P. Poncharal, P. Vincent & S. Seidelin

Abstract: We position a single nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centre hosted in a diamond nanocrystal at the extremity of a SiC nanowire. <–more!>

This novel hybrid system couples the degrees of freedom of two radically different systems: a nanomechanical oscillator and a
single quantum object. We probe the dynamics of the nano-resonator through time-resolved nanocrystal fluorescence and photon-correlation measurements, conveying the influence of a mechanical degree of freedom on a non-classical photon
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We present optical sideband spectroscopy measurements of a mesoscopic mechanical oscillator cooled near its quantum ground state. The mechanical oscillator, corresponding to a 3.99GHz acoustic mode of a patterned silicon nanobeam, is coupled via radiation pressure to a pair of co-localized 200THz optical modes. The mechanical mode is cooled close to its quantum ground state from a bath temperature of 18K using radiation pressure back-action stemming from the optical pumping of one of the optical cavity resonances. An optical probe beam, resonant with the second optical cavity resonance, is used to transduce the mechanical motion and determine the phonon occupancy of the mechanical mode. Measurement of the asymmetry between up-converted and down-converted photons of the probe beam yields directly the displacement noise power associated with the quantum zero-point motion of the mechanical oscillator, and provides an absolute calibration of the average phonon occupancy of the mechanical mode.

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Authors: A. H. Safavi-Naeini, T. P. Mayer Alegre, J. Chan, M. Eichenfield, M. Winger, Q. Lin, J. T. Hill, D. E. Chang & O. Painter

Controlling the interaction between localized optical and mechanical excitations has recently become possible following advances in micro- and nanofabrication techniques. So far, most experimental studies of optomechanics have focused on measurement and control of the mechanical subsystem through its interaction with optics, and have led to the experimental demonstration of dynamical back-action cooling and optical rigidity of the mechanical system. Conversely, the optical response of these systems is also modified in the presence of mechanical interactions, leading to effects such as electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) and parametric normal-mode splitting. In atomic systems, studies of slow and stopped light (applicable to modern optical networks and future quantum networks) have thrust EIT to the forefront of experimental study during the past two decades. Here we demonstrate EIT and tunable optical delays in a nanoscale optomechanical crystal, using the optomechanical nonlinearity to control the velocity of light by way of engineered photon–phonon interactions. Our device is fabricated by simply etching holes into a thin film of silicon. At low temperature (8.7 kelvin), we report an optically tunable delay of 50 nanoseconds with near-unity optical transparency, and superluminal light with a 1.4 microsecond signal advance. These results, while indicating significant progress towards an integrated quantum optomechanical memory, are also relevant to classical signal processing applications. Measurements at room temperature in the analogous regime of electromagnetically induced absorption show the utility of these chip-scale optomechanical systems for optical buffering, amplification, and filtering of microwave-over-optical signals.

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