We study high-stress SiN films for reaching the quantum regime with mesoscopic oscillators connected to a room-temperature thermal bath, for which there are stringent requirements on the oscillators' quality factors and frequencies. Our SiN films support mechanical modes with unprecedented products of mechanical quality factor Qm and frequency νm reaching Qmνm≃2×1013 Hz. The SiN membranes exhibit a low optical absorption characterized by Im(n)≲10−5 at 935 nm, representing a 15 times reduction for SiN membranes. We have developed an apparatus to simultaneously cool the motion of multiple mechanical modes based on a short, high-finesse Fabry-Perot cavity and present initial cooling results along with future possibilities.
@article{arxiv.0909.0970,
title = {Cavity optomechanics with stoichiometric SiN films},
author = {D. J. Wilson and C. A. Regal and S. B. Papp and H. J. Kimble},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0909.0970},
year = {2010}
}