2011/04/30 by Simon Rips, Martin Kiffner, I. Wilson‐Rae +2 · 5 citations
Engineering · Physics and Astronomy · #Coherent states #Condensed matter physics #Field (mathematics) #Fock space #Fock state #Force Microscopy Techniques and Applications #Mechanical and Optical Resonators #Nonlinear system #Phonon #Photonic and Optical Devices #Physics #Quantum #Quantum electrodynamics #Quantum mechanics #Resonance (particle physics) #Wigner distribution function #cond-mat.mes-hall #quant-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1088/1367-2630/14/2/023042
published as New J. Phys. 14, 023042 (2012)
openalex publication_date 2012/02/20 · arxiv created 2012/02/24 · arxiv updated 2015/05/28 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
We propose a scheme for preparing nanomechanical oscillators in nonclassical steady states, characterized by a pronounced negative Wigner function. In our optomechanical approach, the mechanical oscillator couples to multiple laser-driven resonances of an optical cavity. By lowering the resonance frequency of the oscillator via an inhomogeneous electrostatic field, we significantly enhance its intrinsic geometric nonlinearity per phonon. This causes the motional sidebands to split into separate spectral lines for each phonon number and transitions between individual phonon Fock states can be selectively addressed. We show that this enables the preparation of the nanomechanical oscillator in a single-phonon Fock state. Our scheme can, for example, be implemented with a carbon nanotube dispersively coupled to the evanescent field of a state of the art whispering gallery mode microcavity.