Strong dispersive coupling of a high finesse cavity to a micromechanical membrane

Abstract

Macroscopic mechanical objects and electromagnetic degrees of freedom couple to each other via radiation pressure. Optomechanical systems with sufficiently strong coupling are predicted to exhibit quantum effects and are a topic of considerable interest. Devices reaching this regime would offer new types of control of the quantum state of both light and matter and would provide a new arena in which to explore the boundary between quantum and classical physics. Experiments to date have achieved sufficient optomechanical coupling to laser-cool mechanical devices but have not yet reached the quantum regime. The outstanding technical challenge in this field is integrating sensitive micromechanical elements (which must be small, light, and flexible) into high finesse cavities (which are typically much more rigid and massive) without compromising the mechanical or optical properties of either. A second, and more fundamental, challenge is to read out the mechanical element's quantum state: displacement measurements (no matter how sensitive) cannot determine the energy eigenstate of an oscillator, and measurements which couple to quantities other than displacement have been difficult to realize. Here we present a novel optomechanical system which seems to resolve both these challenges. We demonstrate a cavity which is detuned by the motion of a thin dielectric membrane placed between two macroscopic, rigid, high-finesse mirrors. This approach segregates optical and mechanical functionality to physically distinct structures and avoids compromising either. It also allows for direct measurement of the square of the membrane's displacement, and thus in principle the membrane's energy eigenstate. We estimate it should be practical to use this scheme to observe quantum jumps of a mechanical system.

25 pages (including supplementary material), 3 figures, 1 table

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Cited by in corpus (39)

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• Nanomechanical motion measured with precision beyond the standard quantum limit
• Dispersive optomechanics: a membrane inside a cavity
• Robust entanglement of a micromechanical resonator with output optical fields
• Back-action evasion and squeezing of a mechanical resonator using a cavity detector
• Steady state entanglement in the mechanical vibrations of two dielectric membranes
• Emergence of atom-light-mirror entanglement inside an optical cavity
• High quality mechanical and optical properties of commercial silicon nitride membranes
• Quantum Noise Interference and Back-action Cooling in Cavity Nanomechanics
• Dynamical Backaction of Microwave Fields on a Nanomechanical Oscillator
• Cavity-assisted squeezing of a mechanical oscillator
• Establishing EPR-channels between Nanomechanics and Atomic Ensembles
• High-sensitivity monitoring of micromechanical vibration using optical whispering gallery mode resonators
• Intrinsic dissipation in nanomechanical resonators due to phonon tunneling
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• Cavity-Assisted Back Action Cooling of Mechanical Resonators
• Creating and Verifying a Quantum Superposition in a Micro-optomechanical System
• Simultaneous cooling and entanglement of mechanical modes of a micromirror in an optical cavity
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• Quantum analysis of a nonlinear microwave cavity-embedded dc SQUID displacement detector
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• A Monte Carlo Method for Modeling Thermal Damping: Beyond the Brownian-Motion Master Equation
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