Abstract
Red-detuned laser pumping of an atomic resonance will cool the motion of an ion or atom. The complementary regime of blue-detuned pumping is investigated in this work using a single, trapped Mg+ ion interacting with two laser beams, tuned above and below resonance. Widely thought of as a regime of heating, theory and experiment instead show that stimulated emission of centre-of-mass phonons occurs, providing saturable amplification of the motion. A threshold for transition from thermal to coherent oscillating motion has been observed, thus establishing this system as a mechanical analogue to an optical laser—a phonon laser. Such a system has been sought in many different physical contexts.
This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution
Access options
Subscribe to this journal
Receive 12 print issues and online access
$209.00 per year
only $17.42 per issue
Rent or buy this article
Prices vary by article type
from$1.95
to$39.95
Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Kimble, H. J. The quantum internet. Nature 453, 1023–1030 (2008).
Blatt, R. & Wineland, D. Entangled states of trapped atomic ions. Nature 453, 1008–1015 (2008).
Helmerson, K. & Phillips, W. D. Cooling, trapping and manipulation of atoms and Bose–Einstein condensates: Applications to metrology. Riv. Nuovo Cimento 31, 141–186 (2008).
Bloch, I. Quantum coherence and entanglement with ultracold atoms in optical lattices. Nature 453, 1016–1022 (2008).
Cohen-Tannoudji, C. N. Manipulating atoms with photons. Rev. Mod. Phys. 70, 707–719 (1998).
Hänsch, T. W. & Schawlow, A. L. Cooling of gases by laser radiation. Opt. Commun. 13, 68–69 (1975).
Wineland, D. & Dehmelt, H. Proposed 1014 delta upsilon less than upsilon laser fluorescence spectroscopy on t1+ mono-ion oscillator iii. Bull. Am. Phys. Soc. 20, 637–637 (1975).
Wineland, D. J., Drullinger, R. E. & Walls, F. L. Radiation pressure cooling of bound resonant absorbers. Phys. Rev. Lett. 40, 1639–1642 (1978).
Neuhauser, W., Hohenstatt, M., Toschek, P. & Dehmelt, H. G. Optical-sideband cooling of visible atom cloud confined in parabolic well. Phys. Rev. Lett. 41, 233–236 (1978).
Wineland, D. J. & Itano, W. M. Laser cooling of atoms. Phys. Rev. A 20, 1521–1540 (1979).
Javanainen, J. Fundamentals of Laser Interactions: Proceedings of a Seminar Held at Obergurgl, Austria, February 24–March 2 Vol. 229, 249–258 (Springer, 1985).
Sauter, T., Gilhaus, H., Neuhauser, W., Blatt, R. & Toschek, P. Kinetics of a single trapped ion—multistability and stimulated 2-photon light force. Europhys. Lett. 7, 317–322 (1988).
Quint, W. Chaos und Ordnung von Lasergekühlten Ionen in einer Paul-Falle. PhD thesis, Ludwig Maximillians Univ. (1990).
Loftus, T. H., Ido, T., Ludlow, A. D., Boyd, M. M. & Ye, J. Narrow line cooling: Finite photon recoil dynamics. Phys. Rev. Lett. 93, 073003 (2004).
Loftus, T. H., Ido, T., Boyd, M. M., Ludlow, A. D. & Ye, J. Narrow line cooling and momentum-space crystals. Phys. Rev. A 70, 063413 (2004).
Kippenberg, T. J. & Vahala, K. J. Cavity optomechanics: Back-action at the mesoscale. Science 321, 1172–1176 (2008).
Kippenberg, T. J. & Vahala, K. J. Cavity opto-mechanics. Opt. Express 15, 17172–17205 (2007).
Yariv, A. Quantum Electronics 307–309 (Wiley, 1975).
Sargent, M., Scully, M. O. & Lamb, W. E. Laser Physics 45–54 (Addison-Wesley, 1974).
Van der Pol, B. A theory of the amplitude of free and forced triode vibrations. Radio Rev. 1, 701–710 (1920).
Wallentowitz, S., Vogel, W., Siemers, I. & Toschek, P. E. Vibrational amplification by stimulated emission of radiation. Phys. Rev. A 54, 943–946 (1996).
Liu, H. C. et al. Coupled electron–phonon modes in optically pumped resonant intersubband lasers. Phys. Rev. Lett. 90, 077402 (2003).
Bargatin, I. & Roukes, M. L. Nanomechanical analog of a laser: Amplification of mechanical oscillations by stimulated Zeeman transitions. Phys. Rev. Lett. 91, 138302 (2003).
Chudnovsky, E. M. & Garanin, D. A. Phonon superradiance and phonon laser effect in nanomagnets. Phys. Rev. Lett. 93, 257205 (2004).
Chen, J. & Khurgin, J. B. Feasibility analysis of phonon lasers. IEEE J. Quantum Electron. 39, 600–607 (2003).
Tucker, E. B. Amplification of 9.3-kMc/sec ultrasonic pulses by maser action in ruby. Phys. Rev. Lett. 6, 547–547 (1961).
Hu, P. Stimulated emission of 29-cm−1 phonons in ruby. Phys. Rev. Lett. 44, 417–420 (1980).
Fokker, P. A., Dijkhuis, J. I. & deWijn, H. W. Stimulated emission of phonons in an acoustical cavity. Phys. Rev. B 55, 2925–2933 (1997).
Bron, W. E. & Grill, W. Stimulated phonon emission. Phys. Rev. Lett. 40, 1459–1463 (1978).
Kent, A. J. et al. Acoustic phonon emission from a weakly coupled superlattice under vertical electron transport: Observation of phonon resonance. Phys. Rev. Lett. 96, 215504 (2006).
Herrmann, M. et al. Frequency metrology on single trapped ions in the weak binding limit: The 3s(1/2)–3p(3/2) transition in Mg-24(+). Phys. Rev. Lett. 102, 1–4 (2009).
Paul, W. Electromagnetic traps for charged and neutral particles. Rev. Mod. Phys. 62, 531–540 (1990).
Leibfried, D., Blatt, R., Monroe, C. & Wineland, D. Quantum dynamics of single trapped ions. Rev. Mod. Phys. 75, 281–324 (2003).
Yariv, A. Quantum Electronics 56–57 (Wiley, 1975).
Shen, Y. R. & Bloembergen, N. Theory of stimulated Brillouin and Raman scattering. Phys. Rev. 137, 1787–1805 (1964).
Dehmelt, H., Nagourney, W. & Sandberg, J. Self-excited mono-ion oscillator. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 83, 5761–5763 (1986).
Kaplan, A. E. Single-particle motional oscillator powered by laser. Opt. Express 17, 10035–10043 (2009).
Acknowledgements
The authors thank P. Toschek for review and comments on the manuscript. K.V. gratefully acknowledges support from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation and also thanks the California Institute of Technology. T.W.H. gratefully acknowledges support by the Max-Planck Foundation.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Contributions
M.H., S.K., V.B. and G.S. carried out measurements. K.V., M.H. and Th.U. carried out simulations. K.V., M.H., Th.U. and T.W.H. developed the concepts. All authors worked together to plan the measurements and write the manuscript.
Corresponding authors
Supplementary information
Supplementary Information
Supplementary Information (PDF 262 kb)
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Vahala, K., Herrmann, M., Knünz, S. et al. A phonon laser. Nature Phys 5, 682–686 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1038/nphys1367
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nphys1367
This article is cited by
-
Photon-phonon collaboratively pumped laser
Nature Communications (2023)
-
Nonlinear multi-frequency phonon lasers with active levitated optomechanics
Nature Physics (2023)
-
Phase-controlled asymmetric optomechanical entanglement against optical backscattering
Science China Physics, Mechanics & Astronomy (2023)
-
Intracavity Raman scattering couples soliton molecules with terahertz phonons
Nature Communications (2022)
-
Airborne ultrasound pulse amplification based on acoustic resonance switching
Scientific Reports (2022)