Related papers: Measurement of the quantum zero-point motion of a …
The motional sideband asymmetry of a mechanical oscillator interacting with a laser field can be observed when approaching the quantum ground state, where the zero-point energy of the mechanical oscillator becomes a sizable contribution to…
We describe measurements of the motional sidebands produced by a mechanical oscillator (with effective mass 43 ng and resonant frequency 705 kHz) that is placed in an optical cavity and cooled close to its quantum ground state. The red and…
The observation of quantum phenomena in macroscopic mechanical oscillators has been a subject of interest since the inception of quantum mechanics. Prerequisite to this regime are both preparation of the mechanical oscillator at low phonon…
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…
Micro- and nanoscale opto-mechanical systems provide radiation pressure coupling of optical and mechanical degree of freedom and are actively pursued for their ability to explore quantum mechanical phenomena of macroscopic objects. Many of…
Cooling a mesoscopic mechanical oscillator to its quantum ground state is elementary for the preparation and control of low entropy quantum states of large scale objects. Here, we pre-cool a 70-MHz micromechanical silica oscillator to an…
In real-time quantum feedback protocols, the record of a continuous measurement is used to stabilize a desired quantum state. Recent years have seen highly successful applications in a variety of well-isolated micro-systems, including…
Optical measurement of the motion of a 940 kHz mechanical resonance of a silicon nitride nanostring resonator is demonstrated with a read out noise imprecision reaching 37 dB below that of the resonator's zero-point fluctuations. Via…
Although they have enabled several advances in the field of optomechanics, optomechanical disk resonators have not yet been operated in the quantum regime. We present the first experimental demonstration of an optomechanical disk resonator…
Recent theoretical work has shown that radiation pressure effects can in principle cool a mechanical degree of freedom to its ground state. In this paper, we apply this theory to our realization of an opto-mechanical system in which the…
A patterned Si nanobeam is formed which supports co-localized acoustic and optical resonances that are coupled via radiation pressure. Starting from a bath temperature of T=20K, the 3.68GHz nanomechanical mode is cooled into its quantum…
The ground state cooling of a mechanical oscillator in an optomechanical cavity containing an ensemble of identical two-level ground-state atoms is studied in the highly unresolved-sideband regime. The system exhibits…
Optomechanical cavities in the well-resolved-sideband regime are ideally suited for the study of a myriad of quantum phenomena with mechanical systems, including backaction-evading measurements, mechanical squeezing, and generation of…
Mechanical systems are ideal candidates for studying quantumbehavior of macroscopic objects. To this end, a mechanical resonator has to be cooled to its ground state and its position has to be measured with great accuracy. Currently,…
We experimentally investigate a mechanical squeezed state realized in a parametrically-modulated membrane resonator embedded in an optical cavity. We demonstrate that a quantum characteristic of the squeezed dynamics can be revealed and…
We measure the response and thermal motion of a high-Q nanomechanical oscillator coupled to a superconducting microwave cavity in the resolved-sideband regime where the oscillator's resonance frequency exceeds the cavity's linewidth. The…
We investigate a scheme that makes a quantum non-demolition measurement of the excitation level of a mesoscopic mechanical oscillator by utilizing the anharmonic coupling between two elastic beam bending modes. The non-linear coupling…
Preparing a massive mechanical resonator in a state with quantum limited motional energy provides a promising platform for studying fundamental physics with macroscopic systems and allows to realize a variety of applications, including…
In recent decades, the laws of thermodynamics have been pushed down to smaller and smaller scales, within the field of stochastic thermodynamics and state-of-art experiments performed on mesoscopic systems. These measurements concern…
We revisit the problem of preparing a mechanical oscillator in the vicinity of its quantum-mechanical ground state by means of feedback cooling based on continuous optical detection of the oscillator position. In the parameter regime…