2008/02/13 by Aashish A. Clerk, A. A. Clerk, Florian Marquardt +3 · 13 citations
Engineering · Physics and Astronomy · #Advanced MEMS and NEMS Technologies #Force Microscopy Techniques and Applications #Mechanical and Optical Resonators #cond-mat.mes-hall #quant-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1088/1367-2630/10/9/095010
published as New J. Phys. 10, 095010 (2008) (Focus Issue) · 11 pages, 3 figures
arxiv created 2008/02/13 · openalex publication_date 2008/09/30 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/01
We study the quantum measurement of a cantilever using a parametrically coupled electromagnetic cavity which is driven at the two sidebands corresponding to the mechanical motion. This scheme, originally due to Braginsky et al (Braginsky V, Vorontsov Y I and Thorne K P 1980 Science 209 547), allows a back-action free measurement of one quadrature of the cantilever's motion, and hence the possibility of generating a squeezed state. We present a complete quantum theory of this system, and derive simple conditions on when the quantum limit on the added noise can be surpassed. We also study the conditional dynamics of the measurement, and discuss how such a scheme (when coupled with feedback) can be used to generate and detect squeezed states of the oscillator. Our results are relevant to experiments in optomechanics, and to experiments in quantum electromechanics employing stripline resonators coupled to mechanical resonators.