Silicon optomechanical crystal resonator at millikelvin temperatures

Author(s)
Sean M. Meenehan, Justin D. Cohen, Simon Gröblacher, Jeff T. Hill, Amir H. Safavi-Naeini, Markus Aspelmeyer, Oskar Painter
Abstract

Optical measurements of a nanoscale silicon optomechanical crystal cavity with a mechanical resonance frequency of 3.6

GHz are performed at subkelvin 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 (Tf=10 mK), the localized mechanical resonance is found to couple at a rate of γi/2π=400 Hz (Qm=9×106) to a thermal bath of temperature Tb≈270

mK. These measurements indicate that silicon optomechanical crystals

cooled to millikelvin temperatures should be suitable for a variety of

experiments involving coherent coupling between photons and phonons at

the single quanta level.

Organisation(s)
Quantum Optics, Quantum Nanophysics and Quantum Information
External organisation(s)
California Institute of Technology (Caltech)
Journal
Physical Review A
Volume
90
No. of pages
5
ISSN
1050-2947
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.90.011803
Publication date
07-2014
Peer reviewed
Yes
Austrian Fields of Science 2012
103026 Quantum optics
Keywords
Portal url
https://ucrisportal.univie.ac.at/en/publications/9eded0ea-2996-4152-95e4-6cfd86ee44bd