Laser Optomechanics

Abstract

Cavity optomechanics explores the coupling between the optical field and the mechanical oscillation to induce cooling and regenerative oscillation in a mechanical oscillator. So far, optomechanics relies on the detuning between the cavity and an external pump laser, where the laser acts only as a power supply. Here, we report a new scheme with mutual coupling between a mechanical oscillator that supports a mirror of a vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser (VCSEL) and the optical field, greatly enhancing the light-matter energy transfer. In this work, we used an ultra-light-weight (130 pg) high-contrast-grating (HCG) mirror in a VCSEL, whose reflectivity spectrum is designed to facilitate strong optomechanical coupling, to demonstrate optomechanically-induced regenerative oscillation of the laser optomechanical cavity with > 550 nm self-oscillation amplitude of the micro-mechanical oscillator, two to three orders of magnitude larger than typical. This new scheme not only offers an efficient approach for high-speed wavelength-swept sources, but also has far-reaching significance in the realization of quantum entanglement of macroscopic objects and ultrasensitive measurement of displacements and forces.

12 pages, 5 figures

References in corpus (8)

• Observation of strong coupling between a micromechanical resonator and an optical cavity field
• Radiation-pressure cooling and optomechanical instability of a micro-mirror
• Self-cooling of a micro-mirror by radiation pressure
• Cavity Optomechanics
• The optomechanical instability in the quantum regime
• Beating quantum limits in optomechanical sensor by cavity detuning
• An integrated low phase noise radiation-pressure-driven optomechanical oscillator chipset
• Controlled lasing from active optomechanical resonators

Cited by in corpus (13)

• Recent advances in high-contrast metastructures, metasurfaces and photonic crystals
• High-finesse Fabry-Perot cavities with bidimensional Si${}_3$N${}_4$ photonic-crystal slabs
• Integrated microcavity optomechanics with a suspended photonic crystal mirror above a distributed Bragg reflector
• Active optomechanics through relaxation oscillations
• Carrier-mediated optomechanical forces in semiconductor nanomembranes with coupled quantum wells
• Suspended silicon nitride thin films with enhanced and electrically tunable reflectivity
• Quantum optomechanical control of long-lived bulk acoustic phonons
• Profilometry and stress analysis of suspended nanostructured thin films
• Ar/Cl${}_2$ etching of GaAs optomechanical microdisks fabricated with positive electroresist
• Optomechanical lasers for inertial sensing
• Numerical Modeling of MEMS Resonators
• Etch-Tuning and Design of Silicon Nitride Photonic Crystal Reflectors
• Collimation and finite-size effects in suspended resonant guided-mode gratings