The theoretical work of V.B. Braginsky predicted that radiation pressure can couple the mechanical, mirror-eigenmodes of a Fabry-Perot resonator to it's optical modes, leading to a parametric oscillation instability. This regime is characterized by regenerative mechanical oscillation of the mechanical mirror eigenmodes. We have recently observed the excitation of mechanical modes in an ultra-high-Q optical microcavity. Here, we present a detailed experimental analysis of this effect and demonstrate that radiation pressure is the excitation mechanism of the observed mechanical oscillations.
The resonant buildup of light within optical microcavities elevates the radiation pressure which mediates coupling of optical modes to the mechanical modes of a microcavity. Above a certain threshold pump power, regenerative mechanical oscillation occurs causing oscillation of certain mechanical eigenmodes. Here, we present a methodology to spatially image the micro-mechanical resonances of a toroid microcavity using a scanning probe technique. The method relies on recording the induced frequency shift of the mechanical eigenmode when in contact with a scanning probe tip. The method is passive…
We theoretically show that strong mechanical quantum squeezing in a linear optomechanical system can be rapidly generated through the dynamical instability reached in the far red-detuned and ultrastrong coupling regime. We show that this mechanism, which harnesses unstable multimode quantum dynamics, is particularly suited to levitated optomechanics, and we argue for its feasibility for the case of a levitated nanoparticle coupled to a microcavity via coherent scattering. We predict that for sub-millimeter-sized cavities the particle motion, initially thermal and well above its ground state, b…
We fabricated polygonal silica toroidal microcavities to achieve stable mechanical coupling with an evanescent coupler such as a tapered fiber. The polygonal cavity was fabricated by using a combination of isotropic etching, anisotropic etching and laser reflow. It offers both high and low coupling efficiencies with the cavity mode even when the coupler is in contact with the cavity, which offers the possibility of taking the device outside the laboratory. A numerical simulation showed that an octagonal silica toroidal microcavity had an optical quality factor of 8.8\times10^6.
We demonstrate broadband tuning of an optomechanical microcavity optical resonance by exploring the large optomechanical coupling of a double-wheel microcavity and its uniquely low mechanical stiffness. Using a pump laser with only 13 mW at telecom wavelengths we show tuning of the silicon nitride microcavity resonances over 32 nm. This corresponds to a tuning power efficiency of only 400 $μ$W/nm. By choosing a relatively low optical Q resonance ($\approx$18,000) we prevent the cavity from reaching the regime of regenerative optomechanical oscillations. The static mechanical displacement induc…
Optical nonreciprocity and routing using optocal microcavities draw much atttention in recent years. Here, we report the results of the study on the nonreciprocity and routing using optomechanical multimode interference in an optical microcavity. The optomechanical system used here possesses multi-optical modes and a mechanical mode. Optomechanical induced transparency and absorption, appear in the system due to the interference between different paths. The system can present significant nonreciprocity and routing properties when appropriate parameters of the system are set. We design quantum …
We study the mechanical stability of a tunable high-finesse microcavity under ambient conditions and investigate light-induced effects that can both suppress and excite mechanical fluctuations. As an enabling step, we demonstrate the ultra-precise electronic stabilization of a microcavity. We then show that photothermal mirror expansion can provide high-bandwidth feedback and improve cavity stability by almost two orders of magnitude. At high intracavity power, we observe self-oscillations of mechanical resonances of the cavity. We explain the observations by a dynamic photothermal instability…
We theoretically study the frequency stability of an opto-mechanical radio frequency oscillator based on resonant interaction of two optical and one mechanical modes of the same optical microcavity. A generalized expression for the phase noise of the oscillator is derived using Langevin formalism and compared to the phase noise of existing electronic oscillators.
Whispering gallery mode (WGM) microcavities strongly enhance nonlinear optical processes like optical frequency comb, Raman scattering and optomechanics, which nowadays enable cutting-edge applications in microwave synthesis, optical sensing spectroscopy, and integrated photonics. Yet, tunability of their resonances, mostly via coarse and complicated mechanism through temperature, electrical or mechanical means, still poses a major challenge for precision applications as above. Here we introduce a new passive scheme to finely tune resonances of WGMs at MHz precision with an external probe. Suc…
As an important device for detecting rotation, high sensitivity gyroscope is required for practical applications. In recent years, exceptional point (EP) shows its potential in enhancing the sensitivity of sensing in optical cavity. Here we propose an EP enhanced optical gyroscope based on mechanical PT-symmetric system in microcavity. By pumping the two optical modes with different colors, i.e. blue and red detuning, an effective mechanical PT-symmetric system can be obtained and the system can be prepared in EP with appropriate parameters. Compared with the situation of diabolic point, EP ca…
A Compact, Robust, and Tunable Open Microcavity Platform for Solid-State Quantum Electrodynamics
JILA and Department of Physics, University of Colorado Boulder（科罗拉多大学博尔德分校 JILA 与物理系）；Icarus Quantum Inc.（Icarus 量子公司）；National Institute of Standards and Technology（美国国家标准与技术研究院）
Direct laser-written optomechanical double membranes in an optical microcavity
University of Bonn（波恩大学）；Technical University of Munich（慕尼黑工业大学）；Munich Center for Quantum Science and Technology (MCQST)（慕尼黑量子科学与技术中心）；Chalmers University of Technology（查尔姆斯理工大学）
High-finesse, open-geometry microcavities have recently emerged as a versatile tool for enhancing interactions between photons and material systems, with a range of applications in quantum optics and quantum information science. However, mechanical vibrations pose a considerable challenge to their operation within a closed-cycle cryostat, particularly when spatial tunability and free-space optical access are required. Here, we present the design and characterization of a system that can achieve $\sim$16 pm-rms passive mechanical stability between two high-finesse mirrors while permitting both …
We studied optical response of microcavity non-equilibrium exciton-polariton Bose-Einstein condensate with saturable nonlinearity under simultaneous resonant and non-resonant pumping. We demonstrated the emergence of multistabile behavior due to the satutration of the excitonic absorbtion. Stable periodic Rabi- type oscillations of the excitonic and photonic condensate components in the regime of the stationary pump and their transition to the chaotic dynamics through the cascade of Hopf bifurcations by tuning of the electrical pump are revealed.
In this work we combine the large per-photon optical gradient force with the sensitive feedback of a high quality factor whispering-gallery microcavity. The cavity geometry, consisting of a pair of silica disks separated by a nanoscale gap, shows extremely strong dynamical backaction, powerful enough to excite giant coherent oscillations even under heavily damped conditions (mechanical Q=4). In vacuum, the threshold for regenerative mechanical oscillation is lowered to an optical input power of only 270-nanoWatts, or roughly 1000 stored cavity photons, and efficient cooling of the mechanical m…
We theoretically investigate optical bistability, mechanically induced absorption (MIA) and Fano resonance of a hybrid system comprising of a single quantum dot (QD) embedded in a solid state microcavity interacting with the quantized cavity mode and the deformation potential associated with the lattice vibration. We find that the bistability can be tuned by the QD-cavity mode coupling. We further show that the normalized power transmission displays anomalous dispersion indicating that the system can be used to generate slow light. We also demonstrate the possibility of using the system as all…
Optical microcavities are often used to realize enhanced nonlinear optical interactions for highly efficient second-harmonic generation. With increased pump power, the efficiency of nonlinear frequency conversion can be increased further, while some other unwanted nonlinear effects will also emerge, leading to complicated dynamics or instability. Here, we study the interplay between cascaded second- and third-order nonlinear processes and investigate their impact on the second-harmonic generation in microcavities. It is found that the non-degenerate optical parametric oscillation (OPO) appears…
The resonance frequency of an optical whispering gallery mode (WGM) microcavity is extremely important in its various applications. Many efforts have been made to fine tune this parameter. Here, we report the design and implementation of a function resonance tuner of an optical microcavity with resolution about 650 kHz (7 pm @ 1450 nm band), 20% of the optical WGM linewidth. A piezoelectric nano-positioner is used to mechanically compress the microsphere in its axial direction. The ultrafine frequency tuning is achieved benefitting from the much less changes in the axial direction than equator…
Confining a laser field between two high reflectivity mirrors of a high-finesse cavity can increase the probability of a given cavity photon to be scattered by an atom traversing the confined photon mode. This enhanced coupling between light and atoms is successfully employed in cavity quantum electrodynamics experiments and led to a very prolific research in quantum optics. The idea of extending such experiments to sub-wavelength sized nanomechanical systems has been recently proposed in the context of optical cavity cooling. Here we present an experiment involving a single nanorod consisting…
Organic dye molecules have been used in great many scientific and technological applications, but their wider use in quantum optics has been hampered by transitions to short-lived vibrational levels, which limit their coherence properties. To remedy this, one can take advantage of optical resonators. Here we present the first results on coherent molecule-resonator coupling, where a single polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon molecule extinguishes 38\% of the light entering a microcavity at liquid helium temperature. We also demonstrate four-fold improvement of single-molecule stimulated emission co…
Complex optical systems such as high-quality microcavities enabled by advanced lithography and processing techniques paved the way to various light-matter interactions (LMI) studies. Without lattice-matching constraints in epitaxy, coating techniques or shaky open cavity constructions, sub-micrometer-precise lithographic development of a polymer photoresist paves the way to polymer microcavity structures for various spectral regions based on the material's transparency and the geometrical sizes. We introduce a new approach based on 3D nanowriting in photoresist, which can be employed to achiev…
We study the optomechanical coupling of a single-layer graphene with a high-Q Fabry-Perot microcavity in the membrane-in-the-middle configuration. In ordinary dissipative coupling systems, mechanical oscillators modulate the loss associated with the input coupling of the cavity mode; while in our system, the graphene oscillator couples dissipatively with the cavity mode through modulating its absorption loss. By analyzing the effects of the interband transition of a graphene suspended near the node of the cavity field, we obtain strong and tunable dissipative coupling without excessively reduc…
We propose an optomechanical laser based on III-V compounds which exhibits self-pulsation in the presence of a dissipative optomechanical coupling. In such a laser cavity, radiation pressure drives the mechanical degree of freedom and its back-action is caused by the mechanical modulation of the cavity loss rate. Our numerical analysis shows that even in a wideband gain material, such dissipative coupling couples the mechanical oscillation with the laser relaxation oscillations process. Laser self-pulsation is observed for mechanical frequencies below the laser relaxation oscillation frequency…
The simultaneous control of optical and mechanical waves has enabled a range of fundamental and technological breakthroughs, from the demonstration of ultra-stable frequency reference devices to the exploration of the quantum-classical boundaries in laser-cooling experiments. More recently, such an opto-mechanical interaction has been observed in integrated nano-waveguides and microcavities in the Brillouin regime, where short-wavelength mechanical modes scatters light at several GHz. Here we engineer coupled optical microcavities spectra to enable a low threshold excitation of mechanical trav…
We report a novel geometry for OPOs based on nonlinear microcavity resonators. This approach relies on a self-locked scheme that enables OPO emission without the need for thermal locking of the pump laser to the microcavity resonance. By exploiting a CMOS-compatible microring resonator, we achieve oscillation with a complete absence of shutting down, or self-terminating behavior, a very common occurrence in externally pumped OPOs. Further, this scheme consistently produces very wide bandwidth (>300nm, limited by our experimental set-up) combs that oscillate at a spacing of the FSR of the micro…
Micro- and nanoscale optical or microwave cavities are used in a wide range of classical applications and quantum science experiments, ranging from precision measurements, laser technologies to quantum control of mechanical motion. The dissipative photon loss via absorption, present to some extent in any optical cavity, is known to introduce thermo-optical effects and thereby impose fundamental limits on precision measurements. Here, we theoretically and experimentally reveal that such dissipative photon absorption can result in quantum feedback via in-loop field detection of the absorbed opti…
We investigate the feasibility of activating coherent mechanical oscillations in lasing microspheres by modulating the laser emission at a mechanical eigenfrequency. To this aim, 1.5% Nd3+:Barium-Titanium-Silicate microspheres with diameters around 50 μm were used as high quality factor (Q>10^6) whispering gallery mode lasing cavities. We have implemented a pump-and-probe technique in which the pump laser used to excite the Nd3+ ions is focused on a single microsphere with a microscope objective and a probe laser excites a specific optical mode with the evanescent field of a tapered fibre. The…
Optical resonators are increasingly important tools in science and technology. Their applications range from laser physics, atomic clocks, molecular spectroscopy, and single-photon generation to the detection, trapping and cooling of atoms or nano-scale objects. Many of these applications benefit from strong mode confinement and high optical quality factors, making small mirrors of high surface-quality desirable. Building such devices in silicon yields ultra-low absorption at telecom wavelengths and enables integration of micro-structures with mechanical, electrical and other functionalities. …
We experimentally demonstrate an optomechanical cavity based on an air-slot photonic crystal cavity with optical quality factor Qo=4.2\times10^4 and a small modal volume of 0.05 cubic wavelengths. The optical mode is coupled with the in-plane mechanical modes with frequencies up to hundreds of MHz. The fundamental mechanical mode shows a frequency of 65 MHz and a mechanical quality factor of 376. The optical spring effect, optical damping and amplification are observed with a large experimental optomechanical coupling rate gom/2pi of 154 GHz/nm, corresponding to a vacuum optomechanical couplin…
The maximum amplitude of mechanical oscillators coupled to optical cavities are studied both analytically and numerically. The optical backaction on the resonator enables self-sustained oscillations whose limit cycle is set by the dynamic range of the cavity. The maximum attainable amplitude and the phonon generation quantum efficiency of the backaction process are studied for both unresolved and resolved cavities. Quantum efficiencies far exceeding one are found in the resolved sideband regime where the amplitude is low. On the other hand the maximum amplitude is found in the unresolved syste…
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) hig…
Recent nanofabrication technologies have miniaturized optical and mechanical resonators, and have led to a variety of novel optomechanical systems in which optical and mechanical modes are strongly coupled. Here we hybridize an optomechanical resonator with two-level emitters and successfully demonstrate all-optical dynamic control of optical transition in the two-level system by the mechanical oscillation via the cavity quantum-electrodynamics (CQED) effect. Employing copper-doped silicon nanobeam optomechanical resonators, we have observed that the spontaneous emission rate of excitons bound…
We investigate the optical properties of microcavities with suspended subwavelength structured mirrors, such as high-contrast gratings or two-dimensional photonic crystals slabs, and focus in particular on the regime in which the microcavity free-spectral range is larger than the width of a Fano resonance of the highly reflecting structured mirror. In this unusual regime, the transmission spectrum of the microcavity essentially consists in a single mode, whose linewidth can be significantly narrower than both the Fano resonance linewidth and the linewidth of an equally short cavity without str…
We propose a realistic system with separated optical and mechanical degrees of freedom, in which a high-mechanical-quality silicon nitride membrane is placed upon a high-optical-quality whispering gallery microcavity. The strongly enhanced linear optomechanical coupling, together with simultaneously low optical and mechanical losses in the present system, results in a remarkable single-photon cooperativity exceeding 300. This unprecedented cooperativity in the optomechanical system enables optical nonlinearity at low light intensities and holds great potential in generating, storing, and imple…
We experimentally study forced and self oscillations of an optomechanical cavity which is formed between a fiber Bragg grating that serves as a static mirror and between a freely suspended metallic mechanical resonator that serves as a moving mirror. In the domain of small amplitude mechanical oscillations, we find that the optomechanical coupling is manifested as changes in the effective resonance frequency, damping rate and cubic nonlinearity of the mechanical resonator. Moreover, self oscillations of the micromechanical mirror are observed above a certain optical power threshold. A comparis…
A driven high-Q Si microcavity is known to exhibit limit cycle oscillation originating from carrier-induced and thermo-optic nonlinearities. We propose a novel nanophotonic device to realize synchronized optical limit cycle oscillations with coupled silicon (Si) photonic crystal (PhC) microcavities. Here, coupled limit cycle oscillators are realized by using coherently coupled Si PhC microcavities. By simulating coupled-mode equations, we theoretically demonstrate mutual synchronization (entrainment) of two limit cycles induced by coherent coupling. Furthermore, we interpret the numerically si…
Placing a nanomechanical object in the evanescent near-field of a high-$Q$ optical microcavity gives access to strong gradient forces and quantum-noise-limited displacement readout, offering an attractive platform for precision sensing technology and basic quantum optics research. Robustly implementing this platform is challenging, however, as it requires separating optically smooth surfaces by $\lesssimλ/10$. Here we describe a fully-integrated evanescent opto-nanomechanical transducer based on a high-stress Si$_3$N$_4$ nanobeam monolithically suspended above a SiO$_2$ microdisk cavity. Emplo…
In this dissertation novel resonant propulsion of dielectric microspheres is studied with the goal of sorting spheres with identical resonances, which are critical for developing microspherical photonics. First, evanescent field couplers were developed by fixing tapered microfibers in mechanically robust platforms. The tapers were obtained by chemical etching techniques. Using these platforms, WGMs modal numbers, coupling regimes and quality factors were determined for various spheres and compared with theory. Second, the spectroscopic properties of photonic molecules formed by spheres with be…
Coupling a discrete state to a quasi-continuum: A model quantum mechanical system that interpolates between Rabi oscillations and decay-revival dynamics
We demonstrate gallium phosphide (GaP) microdisk optical cavities with intrinsic quality factors $ > 2.8\times10^{5}$ and mode volumes $< 10 (λ/n)^3$, and study their nonlinear and optomechanical properties. For optical intensities up to $8.0\times10^4$ intracavity photons, we observe optical loss in the microcavity to decrease with increasing intensity, indicating that saturable absorption sites are present in the GaP material, and that two-photon absorption is not significant. We observe optomechanical coupling between optical modes of the microdisk around 1.5 $μ$m and several mechanical res…
The on-chip creation of coherent light at visible wavelengths is crucial to field-level deployment of spectroscopy and metrology systems. Although on-chip lasers have been implemented in specific cases, a general solution that is not restricted by limitations of specific gain media has not been reported. Here, we propose creating visible light from an infrared pump by widely-separated optical parametric oscillation (OPO) using silicon nanophotonics. The OPO creates signal and idler light in the 700 nm and 1300 nm bands, respectively, with a 900 nm pump. It operates at a threshold power of (0.9…
We report the realization of dynamical localization in a strongly driven two-mode optomechanical system consisting of two coupled cantilevers. Due to the coupling, mechanical oscillations can transport between the cantilevers. However, by placing one of the cantilevers inside a harmonically oscillating optical trap, we demonstrate that mechanical oscillations become tightly bounded to the isolated cantilevers rather than propagate away at specific driving parameters. The effect of dynamical localization is employed to induce a conductor-to-insulator-like transition in the two-mode mechanical s…
This chapter reviews the fundamental optical properties and applications of pho-tonic molecules (PMs) - photonic structures formed by electromagnetic coupling of two or more optical microcavities (photonic atoms). Controllable interaction between light and matter in photonic atoms can be further modified and en-hanced by the manipulation of their mutual coupling. Mechanical and optical tunability of PMs not only adds new functionalities to microcavity-based optical components but also paves the way for their use as testbeds for the exploration of novel physical regimes in atomic physics and qu…
Two-photon coherent states are one of the main building pillars of non-linear and quantum optics. It is the basis for the generation of minimum-uncertainty quantum states and entangled photon pairs, applications not obtainable from standard coherent states or one-photon lasers. Here we describe a fully-resonant optomechanical parametric amplifier involving a polariton condensate in a trap lattice quadratically coupled to mechanical modes. The quadratic coupling derives from non-resonant virtual transitions to extended discrete excited states induced by the optomechanical coupling. Non-resonant…
