Qantum theory of optomechanical cooling

Abstract

We review the quantum theory of cooling of a mechanical oscillator subject to the radiation pressure force due to light circulating inside a driven optical cavity. Such optomechanical setups have been used recently in a series of experiments by various groups to cool mechanical oscillators (such as cantilevers) by factors reaching $10^5$, and they may soon go to the ground state of mechanical motion. We emphasize the importance of the sideband-resolved regime for ground state cooling, where the cavity ring-down rate is smaller than the mechanical frequency. Moreover, we illustrate the strong coupling regime, where the cooling rate exceeds the cavity ring-down rate and where the driven cavity resonance and the mechanical oscillation hybridize.

12 pages, 3 figures, brief review submitted to Journal of Modern Optics, for the proceedings of the "Physics of Quantum Electronics" conference (Snowbird, 2008)

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Cited by in corpus (1)

• Transport properties of a superconducting single-electron transistor coupled to a nanomechanical oscillator