2011/07/19 by Ewold Verhagen, E. Verhagen, S. Deléglise +6 · 4 citations
Engineering · Physics and Astronomy · #Force Microscopy Techniques and Applications #Mechanical and Optical Resonators #Photonic and Optical Devices #quant-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1038/nature10787
23 pages, 11 figures
arxiv created 2011/07/19 · openalex publication_date 2012/01/31 · crossref created 2012/01/31 · crossref issued 2012/02/01 · crossref published 2012/02/01 · crossref published-online 2012/02/01 · crossref published-print 2012/02/01 · arxiv updated 2015/05/28 · crossref deposited 2023/05/18 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · crossref indexed 2026/07/29 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/29
Quantum control of engineered mechanical oscillators can be achieved by coupling the oscillator to an auxiliary degree of freedom, provided that the coherent rate of energy exchange exceeds the decoherence rate of each of the two sub-systems. We achieve such quantum-coherent coupling between the mechanical and optical modes of a micro-optomechanical system. Simultaneously, the mechanical oscillator is cooled to an average occupancy of n = 1.7 ± 0.1 motional quanta. Pulsed optical excitation reveals the exchange of energy between the optical light field and the micromechanical oscillator in the time domain at the level of less than one quantum on average. These results provide a route towards the realization of efficient quantum interfaces between mechanical oscillators and optical fields.