Optomechanics articles from across Nature Portfolio

Yongjian Tan and colleagues report a universally applicable real-time polarization compensation method for quantum communications. The approach has several advantages over current methods, including a minimum number of waveplates, faster speed, and wider applicability for various optical links.

Dielectric constant of non-fullerene acceptors plays a critical role in organic solar cells in terms of exciton dissociation and charge recombination. Here, authors report selenium substitution on central core of acceptors to improve dielectric constant, realizing devices with efficiency of 19.0%.

This Review discusses advances in engineering high-quality-factor strained nanomechanical resonators with applications in precision measurements.

A transducer that generates microwave–optical photon pairs is demonstrated. This could provide an interface between optical communication networks and superconducting quantum devices that operate at microwave frequencies.

A room-temperature demonstration of optomechanical squeezing of light and measurement of mechanical motion approaching the Heisenberg limit using a phononic-engineered membrane-in-the-middle cavity with ultralow noise.

When multiple oscillators are tuned, degeneracies occur on a knot-shaped region in the space of tuning parameters. This knot influences how such systems can be tuned. Here, the authors reconcile two common means for visualizing this influence.

A coherent interface between a mechanical oscillator and superconducting electrical circuits would enable the control of quantum states of mechanical motion, but such interfaces often result in excess mechanical energy loss. A new material-agnostic approach is shown to achieve strong electromechanical coupling while preserving a long phonon lifetime.

Levitated nanoparticles can now be cooled to the motional ground state in two dimensions. This advance could enable a new generation of macroscopic quantum experiments.

Solitary waves — solitons — occur in a wide range of physical systems with a broad array of attributes and applications. Carefully engineered light–matter interactions have now produced an optomechanical dissipative soliton with promising properties.

Integrating quantum technology with existing telecom infrastructure is hampered by a mismatch in operating frequencies. An optomechanical resonator now offers a strain-mediated spin–photon interface for long-distance quantum networks.