Motional Quantum Ground State of a Levitated Nanoparticle from Room Temperature

Uroš Delić; Manuel Reisenbauer; Kahan Dare; David Grass; Vladan Vuletić; Nikolai Kiesel; Markus Aspelmeyer

doi:10.1126/science.aba3993

paper

Motional Quantum Ground State of a Levitated Nanoparticle from Room Temperature

arXiv:1911.04406 · doi:10.1126/science.aba3993

Abstract

We report quantum ground state cooling of a levitated nanoparticle in a room temperature environment. Using coherent scattering into an optical cavity we cool the center of mass motion of a $143$ nm diameter silica particle by more than $7$ orders of magnitude to $n_{x} = 0.43 \pm 0.03$ phonons along the cavity axis, corresponding to a temperature of $12 μ$ K. We infer a heating rate of $Γ_{x} /2 π = 21 \pm 3$ kHz, which results in a coherence time of $7.6 μ$ s -- or $15$ coherent oscillations -- while the particle is optically trapped at a pressure of $1 0^{- 6}$ mbar. The inferred optomechanical coupling rate of $g_{x} /2 π = 71$ kHz places the system well into the regime of strong cooperativity ( $C \approx 5$ ). We expect that a combination of ultra-high vacuum with free-fall dynamics will allow to further expand the spatio-temporal coherence of such nanoparticles by several orders of magnitude, thereby opening up new opportunities for macrosopic quantum experiments.

Extended methodology

Motional Quantum Ground State of a Levitated Nanoparticle from Room Temperature

Abstract

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