Mechanical bound states in the continuum for macroscopic optomechanics

Abstract

Bound states in the continuum (BICs), an emerging type of long-lived resonances different from the cavity-based ones, have been explored in several classical systems, including photonic crystals and surface acoustic waves. Here, we reveal symmetry-protected mechanical BICs in the structure of slab-on-substrate optomechanical crystals. Using a group theory approach, we identified all the mechanical BICs at the $\Gamma$ point in optomechanical crystals with $C_{4v}$ and $C_{6v}$ symmetries as examples, and analyzed their coupling with the co-localized optical BICs and guided resonances due to both moving boundary and photo-elastic effects. We verified the theoretical analysis with numerical simulations of specific optomechanical crystals which support substantial optomechanical interactions between the mechanical BICs and optical resonances. Due to the unique features of high-$Q$, large-size mechanical BICs and substrate-enabled thermal dissipation, this architecture of slab-on-substrate optomechanical crystals might be useful for exploring macroscopic quantum mechanical physics and enabling new applications such as high-throughput sensing and free-space beam steering.

References in corpus (9)

• Cavity Optomechanics
• Resonantly Trapped Bound State in the Continuum Laser
• Optomechanical Crystals
• A microchip optomechanical accelerometer
• Remote quantum entanglement between two micromechanical oscillators
• Formation of Bound States in the Continuum in Hybrid Plasmonic-Photonic Systems
• Optimized optomechanical crystal cavity with acoustic radiation shield
• Phonon counting and intensity interferometry of a nanomechanical resonator
• Zero-index bound states in the continuum

Cited by in corpus (9)

• Berreman Embedded Eigenstates for Narrowband Absorption and Thermal Emission
• Optomechanical crystal with bound states in the continuum
• Cavity Optomechanics with Photonic Bound States in the Continuum
• Observation of phonon trapping in the continuum with topological charges
• Anomalous quantum Hall effect of light in Bloch-wave modulated photonic crystals
• Bound modes in the continuum based phononic waveguides
• Merging mechanical bound states in the continuum in high-aspect-ratio phononic crystal gratings
• Quasibound states in the continuum in photonic-crystal-based optomechanical microcavities
• Gigahertz modulation of a fully dielectric nonlocal metasurface