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Strong dispersive coupling of a high-finesse cavity to a micromechanical membrane

Nature volume 452, pages 72–75 (2008)Cite this article

An Erratum to this article was published on 17 April 2008

Abstract

Macroscopic mechanical objects and electromagnetic degrees of freedom can couple to each other through radiation pressure. Optomechanical systems in which this coupling is sufficiently strong are predicted to show quantum effects and are a topic of considerable interest. Devices in this regime would offer new types of control over the quantum state of both light and matter1,2,3,4, and would provide a new arena in which to explore the boundary between quantum and classical physics5,6,7. Experiments so far have achieved sufficient optomechanical coupling to laser-cool mechanical devices8,9,10,11,12, but have not yet reached the quantum regime. The outstanding technical challenge in this field is integrating sensitive micromechanical elements (which must be small, light and flexible) into high-finesse cavities (which are typically rigid and massive) without compromising the mechanical or optical properties of either. A second, and more fundamental, challenge is to read out the mechanical element’s energy eigenstate. Displacement measurements (no matter how sensitive) cannot determine an oscillator’s energy eigenstate13, and measurements coupling to quantities other than displacement14,15,16 have been difficult to realize in practice. Here we present an optomechanical system that has the potential to resolve both of these challenges. We demonstrate a cavity which is detuned by the motion of a 50-nm-thick dielectric membrane placed between two macroscopic, rigid, high-finesse mirrors. This approach segregates optical and mechanical functionality to physically distinct structures and avoids compromising either. It also allows for direct measurement of the square of the membrane’s displacement, and thus in principle the membrane’s energy eigenstate. We estimate that it should be practical to use this scheme to observe quantum jumps of a mechanical system, an important goal in the field of quantum measurement.

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Figure 1: Schematic of the dispersive optomechanical set-up.
Figure 2: Optical and mechanical characterization of the cavity.
Figure 3: Passive laser cooling of the membrane.

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Acknowledgements

We acknowledge funding by the NSF, the DFG NIM network and Emmy Noether programme (F.M.), and a fellowship from the Sloane Research Foundation (J.H.). We thank W. Shanks for the microscopy and cryogenic measurements, and C. Yang for assistance with the laser-cooling measurements.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Physics, Yale University, 217 Prospect Street, New Haven, Connecticut, 06520, USA,

    J. D. Thompson, B. M. Zwickl, A. M. Jayich, S. M. Girvin & J. G. E. Harris

  2. Physics Department, Center for NanoScience, and Arnold Sommerfeld Center for Theoretical Physics, Ludwig Maximilians University, Theresienstrasse 37, 80333, Munich, Germany,

    Florian Marquardt

  3. Department of Applied Physics, Yale University, 15 Prospect Street, New Haven, Connecticut 06520, USA,

    S. M. Girvin & J. G. E. Harris

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  1. J. D. Thompson
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Correspondence to J. G. E. Harris.

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Thompson, J., Zwickl, B., Jayich, A. et al. Strong dispersive coupling of a high-finesse cavity to a micromechanical membrane. Nature 452, 72–75 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature06715

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