Nanomechanical motion measured with precision beyond the standard quantum limit

Abstract

Nanomechanical oscillators are at the heart of ultrasensitive detectors of force, mass and motion. As these detectors progress to even better sensitivity, they will encounter measurement limits imposed by the laws of quantum mechanics. For example, if the imprecision of a measurement of an oscillator's position is pushed below the standard quantum limit (SQL), quantum mechanics demands that the motion of the oscillator be perturbed by an amount larger than the SQL. Minimizing this quantum backaction noise and nonfundamental, or technical, noise requires an information efficient measurement. Here we integrate a microwave cavity optomechanical system and a nearly noiseless amplifier into an interferometer to achieve an imprecision below the SQL. As the microwave interferometer is naturally operated at cryogenic temperatures, the thermal motion of the oscillator is minimized, yielding an excellent force detector with a sensitivity of 0.51 aN/rt(Hz). In addition, the demonstrated efficient measurement is a critical step towards entangling mechanical oscillators with other quantum systems.

5 pages, 4 figures

References in corpus (11)

• Strong dispersive coupling of a high finesse cavity to a micromechanical membrane
• Amplification and squeezing of quantum noise with a tunable Josephson metamaterial
• Resolved Sideband Cooling of a Micromechanical Oscillator
• High-sensitivity optical monitoring of a micro-mechanical resonator with a quantum-limited optomechanical sensor
• Optical dilution and feedback cooling of a gram-scale oscillator to 6.9 mK
• Dynamical Backaction of Microwave Fields on a Nanomechanical Oscillator
• Nanomechanical squeezing with detection via a microwave cavity
• Entangling a nanomechanical resonator and a superconducting microwave cavity
• Quantum-Limited Position Detection and Amplification: A Linear Response Perspective
• An off-board quantum point contact as a sensitive detector of cantilever motion
• Prospects for cooling nanomechanical motion by coupling to a superconducting microwave resonator

Cited by in corpus (52)

• Sideband Cooling Micromechanical Motion to the Quantum Ground State
• Circuit cavity electromechanics in the strong coupling regime
• Observation of Radiation Pressure Shot Noise on a Macroscopic Object
• Optomechanical coupling between a multilayer graphene mechanical resonator and a superconducting microwave cavity
• Nonreciprocal microwave signal processing with a Field-Programmable Josephson Amplifier
• Coupling graphene mechanical resonators to superconducting microwave cavities
• Ultrasensitive force and displacement detection using trapped ions
• Cavity quantum electro-optics
• Control of microwave signals using circuit nano-electromechanics
• Cold Damping of an Optically Levitated Nanoparticle to micro-Kelvin Temperatures
• Force sensitivity of multilayer graphene optomechanical devices
• Force-detected nuclear magnetic resonance: Recent advances and future challenges
• Schemes for the observation of photon correlation functions in circuit QED with linear detectors
• Non-degenerate, three-wave mixing with the Josephson ring modulator
• Quantum back-action evading measurement of collective mechanical modes
• Review of cavity optomechanical cooling
• High-Q Nanomechanics via Destructive Interference of Elastic Waves
• Detecting phonon blockade with photons
• A microelectromechanically controlled cavity optomechanical sensing system
• Optomechanical-like coupling between superconducting resonators
• Femtogram Doubly Clamped Nanomechanical Resonators Embedded in a High-Q Two-Dimensional Photonic Crystal Nanocavity
• Advanced quantum techniques for future gravitational-wave detectors
• EPR paradox and quantum steering in a three-mode optomechanical system
• Intracavity-squeezed optomechanical cooling
• Electromechanically induced absorption in a circuit nano-electromechanical system
• Cold-Atom-Induced Control of an Optomechanical Device
• Coupling carbon nanotube mechanics to a superconducting circuit
• Quantum limits to gravity estimation with optomechanics
• Dispersive Qubit Measurement by Interferometry with Parametric Amplifiers
• High-frequency nanotube mechanical resonators
• Optimal limits of cavity optomechanical cooling in the strong coupling regime
• Acousto-optic and opto-acoustic modulation in piezo-optomechanical circuits
• Coherent properties of nano-electromechanical systems
• Negative optical inertia for enhancing the sensitivity of future gravitational-wave detectors
• Detection of weak forces based on noise-activated switching in bistable optomechanical systems
• Reading, writing and squeezing the entangled states of two nanomechanical resonators coupled to a SQUID
• Dynamical scattering models in optomechanics: Going beyond the 'coupled cavities' model
• Advanced Concepts in Josephson Junction Reflection Amplifiers
• Enhanced sensitivity of low-frequency signal by using broad squeezed light and bichromatic local oscillator
• Dueling Dynamical Backaction in a Cryogenic Optomechanical Cavity
• Squeezing-enhanced measurement sensitivity in a cavity optomechanical system
• Switchable Coupling of Vibrations to Two-Electron Carbon-Nanotube Quantum Dot States
• Role of Optical Density of States in Two-mode Optomechanical Cooling
• Force sensors with precision beyond the standard quantum limit
• Improving the optomechanical entanglement and cooling by photothermal force
• Elastic Wave Eigenmode Solver for Acoustic Waveguides
• An optomechanical platform with a 3-dimensional waveguide cavity
• A theoretical scheme for the realization of the sphere-coherent motional states in an atom-assisted optomechanical cavity
• Position and Mode Dependent Optical Detection Back-Action in Cantilever Beam Resonators
• Strong coupling of an optomechanical system to an anomalously dispersive atomic medium
• Optimal Estimation of a Classical Force with a Damped Oscillator in the non-Markovian Bath
• A SQUID based read-out of sub-attoNewton force sensor operating at millikelvin temperatures