Demonstration of an ultracold micro-optomechanical oscillator in a cryogenic cavity

Autor(en)

Simon Gröblacher, Jared B. Hertzberg, Michael Vanner, Garrett Cole, Sylvain Gigan, Keith Schwab, Markus Aspelmeyer

Abstrakt

Preparing and manipulating quantum states of mechanical resonators is a highly interdisciplinary undertaking that now receives enormous interest for its far-reaching potential in fundamental and applied science1, 2. Up to now, only nanoscale mechanical devices achieved operation close to the quantum regime3, 4. We report a new micro-optomechanical resonator that is laser cooled to a level of 30 thermal quanta. This is equivalent to the best nanomechanical devices, however, with a mass more than four orders of magnitude larger (43 ng versus 1 pg) and at more than two orders of magnitude higher environment temperature (5 K versus 30 mK). Despite the large laser-added cooling factor of 4,000 and the cryogenic environment, our cooling performance is not limited by residual absorption effects. These results pave the way for the preparation of 100-m scale objects in the quantum regime. Possible applications range from quantum-limited optomechanical sensing devices to macroscopic tests of quantum physics5, 6.

Organisation(en)

Quantenoptik, Quantennanophysik und Quanteninformation

Externe Organisation(en)

University of Maryland, College Park, École supérieure de physique et de chimie industrielles de la ville de Paris, Cornell University

Journal

Nature Physics

Band

5

Seiten

485-488

Anzahl der Seiten

4

ISSN

1745-2473

DOI

https://doi.org/10.1038/nphys1301

Publikationsdatum

2009

Peer-reviewed

Ja

ÖFOS 2012

1030 Physik, Astronomie

Link zum Portal

https://ucrisportal.univie.ac.at/de/publications/08cb2238-9e9e-4202-b0c0-b86e2a9b1e07