We use single photon detectors to probe the motional state of a superfluid $^4$He resonator of mass $\sim1$ ng. The arrival times of Stokes and anti-Stokes photons (scattered by the resonator's acoustic mode) are used to measure the resonator's phonon coherences up to the fourth order. By post-selecting on photon detection events, we also measure coherences in the resonator when $\leq3$ phonons have been added or subtracted. These measurements are found to be consistent with predictions that assume the acoustic mode to be in thermal equilibrium with a bath through a Markovian coupling.
We propose and analyze a circuit that implements a nonlinear coupling between two superconducting microwave resonators. The resonators are coupled through a superconducting quantum interference device (SQUID) that terminates one of the resonators. This produces a nonlinear interaction on the standard optomechanical form, where the quadrature of one resonator couples to the photon number of the other resonator. The circuit therefore allows for all-electrical realizations of analogs to optomechanical systems, with coupling that can be both strong and tunable. We estimate the coupling strengths t…
We demonstrate that a geometric phase, generated via a sequence of four optomechanical interactions, can be used to increase, or generate nonlinearities in the unitary evolution of a mechanical resonator. Interactions of this form lead to new mechanisms for preparing mechanical squeezed states, and preparation of non-classical states with significant Wigner negativity.
We study the optical transmission characteristics of pump-probe driven spinning optomechanical ring resonators coupled in a series configuration. After performing the steady-state analysis valid for an arbitrary number of resonators, as an example, we discuss the two-resonator problem in detail. Therein, we focus on how changing the optical Sagnac effect due to same or opposite spinning directions of resonators can lead to enhanced, non-reciprocal and delayed probe light transmission. This work can help in devising spin degree of freedom based novel devices of manipulating light propagation in…
We experimentally demonstrate the high-sensitivity optical monitoring of a micro-mechanical resonator and its cooling by active control. Coating a low-loss mirror upon the resonator, we have built an optomechanical sensor based on a very high-finesse cavity (30000). We have measured the thermal noise of the resonator with a quantum-limited sensitivity at the 10^-19 m/rootHz level, and cooled the resonator down to 5K by a cold-damping technique. Applications of our setup range from quantum optics experiments to the experimental demonstration of the quantum ground state of a macroscopic mechanic…
Synchronization has great impacts in various fields such as self-clocking, communication, neural networks, etc. Here we present a mechanism of synchronization for two mechanical modes in two coupled optomechanical resonators by introducing the so-called PT-symmetric structure. It is shown that the degree of synchronization between the two far-off-resonant mechanical modes can be increased by decreasing the coupling strength between the two optomechanical resonators. Additionally, when we consider the stochastic noises in the optomechanical resonators, we find that more noises can enhance the d…
Ground-state cooling of mechanical resonators is an important task in quantum optomechanics, because it is a necessary prerequisite for creation, manipulation, and application of macroscopic mechanical coherence. Here, we propose a transient-state scheme to accelerate ground-state cooling of a mechanical resonator in a three-mode loop-coupled optomechanical system via shortcuts to adiabaticity (STA). We consider four kinds of coupling protocols and calculate the evolution of the mean phonon number of the mechanical resonator in both the adiabatic and STA cases. We verify that the ground-state …
We consider a cavity optomechanical cooling configuration consisting of a mechanical resonator (denoted as resonator b) and an electromagnetic resonator (denoted as resonator a), which are coupled in such a way that the effective resonance frequency of resonator a depends linearly on the displacement of resonator b. We study whether back-reaction effects in such a configuration can be efficiently employed for suppression of decoherence. To that end, we consider the case where the mechanical resonator is prepared in a superposition of two coherent states and evaluate the rate of decoherence. We…
We describe a new approach for on-chip optical non-reciprocity which makes use of strong optomechanical interaction in microring resonators. By optically pumping the ring resonator in one direction, the optomechanical coupling is only enhanced in that direction, and consequently, the system exhibits a non-reciprocal response. For different configurations, this system can function either as an optical isolator or a coherent non-reciprocal phase shifter. We show that the operation of such a device on the level of single-photon could be achieved with existing technology.
We report the experimental demonstration of optomechanical light storage in a silica resonator. We use writing and readout laser pulses tuned to one mechanical frequency below an optical cavity resonance to control the coupling between the mechanical displacement and the optical field at the cavity resonance. The writing pulse maps a signal pulse at the cavity resonance to a mechanical excitation. The readout pulse later converts the mechanical excitation back to an optical pulse. The light storage lifetime is determined by the relatively long damping time of the mechanical excitation.
A pulsed cooling scheme for optomechanical systems is presented that is capable of cooling at much faster rates, shorter overall cooling times, and for a wider set of experimental scenarios than is possible by conventional methods. The proposed scheme can be implemented for both strongly and weakly coupled optomechanical systems in both weakly and highly dissipative cavities. We study analytically its underlying working mechanism, which is based on interferometric control of optomechanical interactions, and we demonstrate its efficiency with pulse sequences that are obtained by using methods f…
Cavity-enhanced radiation-pressure coupling of optical and mechanical degrees of freedom gives rise to a range of optomechanical phenomena, in particular providing a route to the quantum regime of mesoscopic mechanical oscillators. A prime challenge in cavity optomechanics has however been to realize systems which simultaneously maximize optical finesse and mechanical quality. Here we demonstrate for the first time independent control over both mechanical and optical degree of freedom within one and the same on-chip resonator. The first direct observation of mechanical normal mode coupling in …
We demonstrate a centimeter-scale optomechanical magnetometer based on a crystalline whispering gallery mode resonator. The large size of the resonator allows high magnetic field sensitivity to be achieved in the hertz to kilohertz frequency range. A peak sensitivity of 131 pT per root Hz is reported, in a magnetically unshielded non-cryogenic environment and using optical power levels beneath 100 microWatt. Femtotesla range sensitivity may be possible in future devices with further optimization of laser noise and the physical structure of the resonator, allowing applications in high-performan…
We realize a superconducting circuit analog of the generic cavity-optomechanical Hamiltonian by longitudinally coupling two superconducting resonators, which are an order of magnitude different in frequency. We achieve longitudinal coupling by embedding a superconducting quantum interference device (SQUID) into a high frequency resonator, making its resonance frequency depend on the zero point current fluctuations of a nearby low frequency LC-resonator. By employing sideband drive fields we enhance the intrinsic coupling strength of about 15 kHz up to 280 kHz by controlling the amplitude of th…
We study the phonon dynamics in lattices of optomechanical resonators where the mutually coupled photonic modes are coherently driven and the mechanical resonators are uncoupled and connected to independent thermal baths. We present a general procedure to obtain the effective Lindblad dynamics of the phononic modes for an arbitrary lattice geometry, where the light modes play the role of an effective reservoir that mediates the phonon nonequilibrium dynamics. We show how to stabilize stationary states exhibiting directional heat currents over arbitrary distance, despite the absence of thermal …
We propose two kinds of distinguishing parameter regimes to induce topological Su-Schrieffer-Heeger (SSH) phase in a one dimensional (1D) multi-resonator cavity optomechanical system via modulating the frequencies of both cavity fields and resonators. The introduction of the frequency modulations allows us to eliminate the Stokes heating process for the mapping of the tight-binding Hamiltonian without usual rotating wave approximation, which is totally different from the traditional mapping of the topological tight-binding model. We find that the tight-binding Hamiltonian can be mapped into a …
We explore theoretically the optical response properties in an optomechanical system under electromagneti- cally induced transparency condition but with the mechanical resonator being driven by an additional coherent field. In this configuration, more complex quantum coherent and interference phenomena occur. In partic- ular, we find that the probe transmission spectra depend on the total phase of the applied fields. Our study also provides an efficient way to control propagation of amplification.
We report the experimental demonstration of converting coherent optical fields between two different optical wavelengths by coupling two optical modes to a mechanical breathing mode in a silica resonator. The experiment is based on an itinerant approach, in which state-mapping from optical to mechanical and from mechanical to another optical state takes place simultaneously. In contrast to conventional nonlinear optical processes, optomechanical impedance matching as well as efficient optical input-output coupling, instead of phase-matching, plays a crucial role in optomechanics-based waveleng…
We propose a scheme that can generate a tunable double optomechanically induced transparency (OMIT) in a hybrid optomechanical cavity system, in which the mechanical resonator of an optomechanical cavity is coupled to an additional mechanical resonator, and the additional mechanical resonator can be driven by a weak external coherently mechanical driving field. We show that both the intensity and the phase of the the external mechanical driving field can control the propagation of the probe field, including changing the transmission spectrum curve from a double-window to a single-window. Our s…
We theoretically propose a scheme for the generation of a non-classical single-mode motional state of a mechanical resonator (MR) in the three-mode optomechanical systems, in which two optical modes of the cavities are linearly coupled to each other and one mechanical mode of the MR is optomechanically coupled to the two optical modes with the same coupling strength simultaneously. One cavity is driven by a coherent laser light. By properly tuning the frequency of the weak driving field, we obtain engineered Liouvillian superoperator via engineering the selective interaction Hamiltonian confin…
We theoretically study high-order optomechanically-induced transparency (OMIT) process in a nonlinear Kerr resonator. A frequency shift induced by the Kerr effect, is identified for the optical cavity mode, which results in asymmetric OMIT windows of the signal and its higher-order sidebands. We also find that both the sideband amplitude and its associated group delay sensitively depend on the strength of the Kerr nonlinearity. This indicates the possibility to enhance or steer the performance of OMIT devices with various nonlinear optical cavities.
In the framework of the nonsecular perturbation theory based on the Bogoliubov averaging method, an optomechanical system with an asymmetric anharmonic mechanical resonator is studied. The cross-Kerr interaction and the Kerr-like self-interaction of photons and vibration quanta arise in the Hamiltonian. These interactions are induced by both cubic and quartic nonlinearities of oscillations of the mechanical resonator and the cavity-resonator interaction that is linear in mechanical displacements. We demonstrate a bistable behavior of the number of vibration quanta and find that this behavior i…
We theoretically study a strongly-driven optomechanical system which consists of a passive optical cavity and an active mechanical resonator. When the optomechanical coupling strength is varied, phase transitions, which are similar those observed in $\mathcal{PT}$-symmetric systems, are observed. We show that the optical transmission can be controlled by changing the gain of the mechanical resonator and loss of the optical cavity mode. Especially, we find that: (i) for balanced gain and loss, optical amplification and absorption can be tuned by changing the optomechanical coupling strength thr…
A standard model is suggested to explore correlation features of two spatially separated optomechanical cavities. The cavities are coupled through the photon-hopping process. In particular, we investigate the generation of entanglement between mechanical resonators in the strong coupling regime and the two cavities are assumed to be driven by a coherent laser field. In order to quantify entanglement we use the logarithmic negativity. The analytical solutions are presented for the system in a parameter regime very close to the current experimental results. We show that in the presence of the ph…
Optical measurements of a nanoscale silicon optomechanical crystal cavity with a mechanical resonance frequency of 3.6GHz are performed at sub-kelvin temperatures. We infer optical-absorption-induced heating and damping of the mechanical resonator from measurements of phonon occupancy and motional sideband asymmetry. At the lowest probe power and lowest fridge temperature (10mK), the localized mechanical resonance is found to couple at a rate of 400Hz (Q=9x10^6) to a thermal bath of temperature 270mK. These measurements indicate that silicon optomechanical crystals cooled to millikelvin temper…
We propose to cool a mechanical resonator close to its ground state via an electromagnetically-induced-transparency- (EIT-) like cooling mechanism in a double-cavity optomechanical system, where an additional cavity couples to the original one in the standard optomechanical system. By choosing optimal parameters such that the cooling process of the mechanical resonator corresponds to the maximum value of the optical fluctuation spectrum and the heating process to the minimum one, the mechanical resonator can be cooled with the final mean phonon number less than that at the absence of the addit…
We adopt the Ramsey's method of separated oscillatory fields to study coherences of the mechanical system in an optomechanical resonator. The high resolution Ramsey fringes are observed in the emission optical field, when two pulses separated in time are applied. We develop a theory to describe the transient optomechanical behavior underlying the Ramsey fringes. We also perform the experimental demonstration using a silica microresonator. The method is versatile and can be adopted to different types of mechanical resonators, electromechanical resonators.
Ground state cooling of massive mechanical objects remains a difficult task restricted by the unresolved mechanical sidebands. We propose an optomechanically-induced-transparency cooling scheme to achieve ground state cooling of mechanical motion without the resolved sideband condition in a pure optomechanical system with two mechanical modes coupled to the same optical cavity mode. We show that ground state cooling is achievable for sideband resolution $ω_{m}/κ$ as low as 0.003. This provides a new route for quantum manipulation of massive macroscopic devices and high-precision measurements.
We propose and analyze theoretically a cavity optomechanical analog of a heat pump that uses a polariton fluid to cool mechanical modes coupled to a single pre-cooled phonon mode via external modulation of the substrate of the mechanical resonator. This approach permits to cool phonon modes of arbitrary frequencies not limited by the cavity-optical field detuning deep into the quantum regime from room temperature.
Low dissipation, tunable coupling to other quantum systems, and unique features of phonons in the aspects of propagation, detection and others suggest the applications of quantized mechanical resonators in phonon-based quantum information processing (QIP) in a way different from their photonic counterpart. In this paper, we propose the first protocol of entanglement concentration for nonlocal phonons from quantized mechanical vibration. We combine the optomechanical cross-Kerr interaction with the Mach-Zehnder interferometer and, by means of twice optomechanical interactions and the photon ana…
A direct photon-phonon parametric effect of the quadratic coupling on the mean-field dynamics of an optomechanical resonator in the large-scale-movement regime is found and investigated. Under a weak pumping power, the mechanical resonator damps to steady state with a nonlinear static response sensitively modified by the quadratic coupling. When the driving powerincreases beyond the static energy balance, the steady states lose their stabilities via Hopf bifurcations and the resonator produces stable self-sustained oscillation(limit-circle behavior) of discrete energies with step-like amplitud…
We investigate theoretically the influence of laser phase noise on the cooling and heating of a generic cavity optomechanical system. We derive the back-action damping and heating rates and the mechanical frequency shift of the radiation pressure-driven oscillating mirror, and derive the minimum phonon occupation number for small laser linewidths. We find that in practice laser phase noise does not pose serious limitations to ground state cooling. We then consider the effects of laser phase noise in a parametric cavity driving scheme that minimizes the back-action heating of one of the quadrat…
We give a theoretical study of a double-cavity system in which a mechanical resonator beam is coupled to two cavity modes on both sides through radiation pressures. The indirect coupling between the cavities via the resonator sets up a correlation in the optomechanical entanglements between the two cavities with the common resonator. This correlation initiates an entanglement transfer from the intracavity photon-phonon entanglements to an intercavity photon-photon entanglement. Using numerical solutions, we show two distinct regimes of the optomechanical system, in which the indirect entanglem…
We experimentally study an optomechanical cavity consisting of an oscillating mechanical resonator embedded in a superconducting microwave transmission line cavity. Tunable optomechanical coupling between the mechanical resonator and the microwave cavity is introduced by positioning a niobium-coated single mode optical fiber above the mechanical resonator. The capacitance between the mechanical resonator and the coated fiber gives rise to optomechanical coupling, which can be controlled by varying the fiber-resonator distance. We study radiation pressure induced self-excited oscillations as a …
We describe how strong resonant interactions in multimode optomechanical systems can be used to induce controlled nonlinear couplings between single photons and phonons. Combined with linear mapping schemes between photons and phonons, these techniques provide a universal building block for various classical and quantum information processing applications. Our approach is especially suited for nano-optomechanical devices, where strong optomechanical interactions on a single photon level are within experimental reach.
We propose a method to decouple the nanomechanical resonator in optomechanical systems from the environmental noise by introducing a chaotic coherent feedback loop. We find that the chaotic controller in the feedback loop can modulate the dynamics of the controlled optomechanical system and induce a broadband response of the mechanical mode. This broadband response of the mechanical mode will cut off the coupling between the mechanical mode and the environment and thus suppress the environmental noise of the mechanical modes. As an application, we use the protected optomechanical system to act…
Hybrid quantum systems have been developed with various mechanical, optical and microwave harmonic oscillators. The coupling produces a rich library of interactions including two mode squeezing, swapping interactions, back-action evasion and thermal control. In a multimode mechanical system, coupling resonators of different scales (both in frequency and mass) leverages the advantages of each resonance. For example: a high frequency, easily manipulated resonator could be entangled with a low frequency massive object for tests of gravitational decoherence. Here we demonstrate coherent optomechan…
We systematically study the influence of simultaneously modulating the input laser intensity and quantum dot (QD) resonance frequecy on the mean-field dynamics, fluctuation energy transfer and entanglement in a optomechanical semi-conductor resonator embedded with a QD. We show that the modulation and the hybrid system can be engineered to attain the desired mean-field values, control the fluctuation energy transfer and the entanglement between the various degrees of freedom. A remarkably high degree of entanglement can be achieved by modulating only the QD frequency. The interplay between the…
The observation of phonon blockade in a nanomechanical oscillator is clear evidence of its quantum nature. However, it is still a severe challenge to measure the strong phonon blockade in an optomechanical system with effective nonlinear coupling. In this paper, we propose a theoretical proposal for detecting the phonon blockade effect in a quadratically coupled optomechanical system by exploiting supervised machine learning. The detected optical signals are injected into the neural network as the input, while the output is the mechanical equal-time second-order correlation. Our results show o…
We propose a platform for robust and tunable nonreciprocal phonon transport based on arrays of optomechanical microtoroids. In our approach, time-reversal symmetry is broken by the interplay of photonic spin-orbit coupling, engineered using a state-of-the-art geometrical approach, and the optomechanical interaction. We demonstrate the topologically protected nature of this system by investigating its robustness to imperfections. This type of system could find application in phonon-based information storage and signal processing devices.
We consider an array of three optomechanical cavities coupled either reversibly or irreversibly to each other and calculate the amount of entanglement between the different optical and mechanical modes. We show the composite system exhibits intercavity photon-phonon entanglement.
We propose a scheme to implement quantum controlled NOT gate and quantum phase gate in an optomechanical system based on phonon blockade. For appropriate choices of system parameters, fidelities of both the quantum gate operations are very close to unity in the absence of dissipation. Using recently achieved experimental values in a mechanical resonator coupled to a microwave cavity, we show that the quantum gate can be realized experimentally with very high fidelity.
Matter-wave interferometry and spectroscopy of optomechanical resonators offer complementary advantages. Interferometry with cold atoms is employed for accurate and long-term stable measurements, yet it is challenged by its dynamic range and cyclic acquisition. Spectroscopy of optomechanical resonators features continuous signals with large dynamic range, however it is generally subject to drifts. In this work, we combine the advantages of both devices. Measuring the motion of a mirror and matter waves interferometrically with respect to a joint reference allows us to operate an atomic gravime…
Based on photon-phonon nonlinear interaction, a scheme is proposed to realize a controllable multi-path photon-phonon converter at single-quantum level in a composed quadratically coupled optomechanical system. Considering the realization of the scheme, an associated mechanical oscillator is introduced to enhance the effective nonlinear effect. Thus, the single-photon state can be converted to the phonon state with high fidelity even under the current experimental condition that the single-photon coupling rate is much smaller than mechanical frequency ($g\llω_m$). The state transfer protocols …
We propose and analyze a microscopic Stirling heat engine based on an optomechanical system. The working fluid is a single vibrational mode of a mechanical resonator, which interacts by radiation pressure with a feedback-controlled optical cavity. The cavity light is used to engineer the thermal reservoirs and to steer the resonator through a thermodynamic cycle. In particular, the feedback is used to properly modulate the light fluctuations inside the cavity and hence to realize efficient thermodynamic transformations with realistic optomechanical devices.
Phonon nonlinearities play an important role in hybrid quantum networks and on-chip quantum devices. We investigate the phonon statistics of a mechanical oscillator in hybrid systems composed of an atom and one or two standard optomechanical cavities. An efficiently enhanced atom-phonon interaction can be derived via a tripartite atom-photon-phonon interaction, where the atom-photon coupling depends on the mechanical displacement without practically changing a cavity frequency. This novel mechanism of optomechanical interactions, as predicted recently by Cotrufo et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 118, 1…
We study a resonator coupled to a generic detector and calculate the noise spectra of the two sub-systems. We describe the coupled system by a closed, linear, set of Langevin equations and derive a general form for the finite frequency noise of both the resonator and the detector. The resonator spectrum is the well-known thermal form with an effective damping, frequency shift and diffusion term. In contrast, the detector noise shows a rather striking Fano-like resonance, i.e. there is a resonance at the renormalized frequency, and an anti-resonance at the bare resonator frequency. As examples …
We investigate a hybrid quantum system consisting of a cavity optomechanical device optically coupled to an ultracold quantum gas. We show that the dispersive properties of the ultracold gas can be used to dramatically modify the optomechanical response of the mechanical resonator. We examine hybrid schemes wherein the mechanical resonator is coupled either to the motional or the spin degrees of freedom of the ultracold gas. In either case, we find an enhancement of more than two orders of magnitude in optomechanical cooling due to this hybrid interaction. Significantly, based on demonstrated …
We propose a scheme for enhancing the optomechanical coupling between microwave and mechanical resonators by up to seven orders of magnitude to the ultrastrong coupling limit in a circuit optomechanical setting. The tripartite system considered here consists of a Josephson junction Cooper-pair box that mediates the coupling between the microwave cavity and the mechanical resonator. The optomechanical coupling can be modified by tuning the gate charge and the magnetic flux bias of the Cooper-pair box which in turn affect the Josephson capacitance of the Cooper-pair box. We additionally show tha…
Using pulsed optical excitation and read-out along with single phonon counting techniques, we measure the transient back-action, heating, and damping dynamics of a nanoscale silicon optomechanical crystal cavity mounted in a dilution refrigerator at a base temperature of 11mK. In addition to observing a slow (~740ns) turn-on time for the optical-absorption-induced hot phonon bath, we measure for the 5.6GHz `breathing' acoustic mode of the cavity an initial phonon occupancy as low as 0.021 +- 0.007 (mode temperature = 70mK) and an intrinsic mechanical decay rate of 328 +- 14 Hz (mechanical Q-fa…
The mechanical properties of light have found widespread use in the manipulation of gas-phase atoms and ions, helping create new states of matter and realize complex quantum interactions. The field of cavity-optomechanics strives to scale this interaction to much larger, even human-sized mechanical objects. Going beyond the canonical Fabry-Perot cavity with a movable mirror, here we explore a new paradigm in which multiple cavity-optomechanical elements are wired together to form optomechanical circuits. Using a pair of optomechanical cavities coupled together via a phonon waveguide we demonst…
We determine the theoretical limits to squeezing-enhanced measurement sensitivity of mechanical motion in a cavity optomechanical system. The motion of a mechanical resonator is transduced onto quadrature fluctuations of a cavity optical field and a measurement is performed on the optical field exiting the cavity. We compare measurement sensitivities obtained with coherent probing and quantum-enhanced probing of the mechanical motion, i.e. the coherent probe field carries vacuum states and quadrature squeezed vacuum states at sideband frequencies, respectively. We find that quantum-enhanced pr…
