Related papers: Inhomogeneous mechanical losses in micro-oscillato…
Thermal fluctuations in the coatings used to make high-reflectors are becoming significant noise sources in precision optical measurements and are particularly relevant to advanced gravitational wave detectors. There are two recognized…
We present the results of mechanical characterizations of many different high-quality optical coatings made of ion-beam-sputtered titania-doped tantala and silica, developed originally for interferometric gravitational-wave detectors. Our…
We report on low mechanical loss in a high-stress silicon nitride (Si_{3}N_{4}) membrane at temperatures below 100 mK. We isolate a membrane via a phononic shield formed within a supporting silicon frame, and measure the mechanical quality…
Mechanical resonators made with monolithic piezoelectric quartz crystals are promising for studying new physical phenomena. High mechanical quality factors ($Q$) exhibited by the mm-sized quartz resonators make them ideal for studying weak…
Interferometric gravitational wave detectors use mirrors whose substrates are formed from materials of low intrinsic mechanical dissipation. The two most likely choices for the test masses in future advanced detectors are fused silica or…
We investigate the dynamics of mechanical resonators subject to excitations comprising of an oscillating or harmonic part, whose amplitude decays exponentially in time. We call these complex frequency excitations and show that the resulting…
In modern high precision optical instruments, such as in gravitational wave detectors or frequency references, thermally induced fluctuations in the reflective coatings can be a limiting noise source. This noise, known as coating thermal…
We develop a steady-state analytical and numerical model of the optical response of power-recycled Fabry-Perot Michelson laser gravitational-wave detectors to thermal focusing in optical substrates. We assume that the thermal distortions…
We study the optomechanical properties of stoichiometric SiN resonators through a combination of spectroscopic and interferometric imaging techniques. At room temperature, we demonstrate ultrahigh quality factors of $5 \times 10^7$ and a $f…
Micro- and nanomechanical systems with exceptionally low dissipation rates are enabling the next-generation technologies of ultra-sensitive detectors and quantum information systems. New techniques and methods for lowering the dissipation…
In this letter, we characterize the internal dissipation of coated micro-cantilevers through their mechanical thermal noise. Using a home-made interferometric setup, we achieve a resolution down to 1E-14m/rtHz in the measurement of their…
We demonstrate micromechanical reflectors with a reflectivity as large as 99.4% and a mechanical quality factor Q as large as 7.8*10^5 for optomechanical applications. The reflectors are silicon nitride membranes patterned with…
Thermal noise of a mirror is one of the limiting noise sources in the high precision measurement such as gravitational-wave detection, and the modeling of thermal noise has been developed and refined over a decade. In this paper, we present…
Optomechanical resonators suffer from the dissipation of mechanical energy through the necessary anchors enabling the suspension of the structure. Here we show that such structural loss in an optomechnaical oscillator can be almost…
We measure the motional fluctuations of a micromechanical mirror using a Michelson interferometer, and demonstrate its interferometric stability. The position stability of the micromirror is dominated by the thermal mechanical noise of the…
Measuring the losses arising from different materials and interfaces is crucial to improving the coherence of superconducting quantum circuits. Although this has been of interest for a long time, current studies can either only provide…
We report on the fabrication and characterization of a micromechanical oscillator consisting only of a free-standing dielectric Bragg mirror with high optical reflectivity and high mechanical quality. The fabrication technique is a hybrid…
Silicon-based micro-electromechanical systems (MEMS) can be fabricated using bulk and surface micromachining technology. A micro mirror designed as an oscillatory MEMS constitutes a prominent example. Typically, in order to minimize energy…
We consider a small partially reflecting vibrating mirror coupled dispersively to a single optical mode of a high finesse cavity. We show this arrangement can be used to implement quantum squeezing of the mechanically oscillating mirror.
Ultralow dissipation plays an important role in sensing applications and exploring macroscopic quantum phenomena using micro-and nano-mechanical systems. We report a diamagnetic-levitated micro-mechanical oscillator operating at a low…