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Dynamical strong coupling and parametric amplification of mechanical modes of graphene drums

Nature Nanotechnology volume 11, pages 747–751 (2016)Cite this article

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Abstract

Mechanical resonators are ubiquitous in modern information technology. With the possibility of coupling them to electromagnetic and plasmonic modes, they hold promise as the key building blocks in future quantum information technology. Graphene-based resonators are of interest for technological applications due to their high resonant frequencies, multiple mechanical modes and low mass1,2,3,4,5,6,7. The tension-mediated nonlinear coupling between various modes of the resonator can be excited in a controllable manner8,9,10,11. Here we engineer a graphene resonator with large frequency tunability at low temperatures, resulting in a large intermodal coupling strength. We observe the emergence of new eigenmodes and amplification of the coupled modes using red and blue parametric excitation, respectively. We demonstrate that the dynamical intermodal coupling is tunable. A cooperativity of 60 between two resonant modes of ∼100 MHz is achieved in the strong coupling regime. The ability to dynamically control the coupling between the high-frequency eigenmodes of a mechanical system opens up the possibility of quantum mechanical experiments at low temperatures12,13.

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Figure 1: Graphene drum electromechanics in the low-tension regime.
Figure 2: Strong coupling between electromechanical modes.
Figure 3: Normal mode splitting and large cooperativity.
Figure 4: Amplification of motion using blue pump.

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Acknowledgements

We thank V. Singh, A. A. Clerk, A. Bhushan and A. Naik for discussions and comments on the manuscript. We acknowledge funding from the Department of Atomic Energy, the Department of Science and Technology (Swarnajayanti Fellowship for M.M.D) of the Government of India and ITC-PAC Grant No. FA5209-15-P-0092.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Condensed Matter Physics and Materials Science, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Homi Bhabha Road, Mumbai, 400005, India

    John P. Mathew, Raj N. Patel, Abhinandan Borah, R. Vijay & Mandar M. Deshmukh

  2. Physics Department, Birla Institute of Technology and Science Pilani – K. K. Birla Goa Campus, Goa, 403726, India

    Raj N. Patel

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  1. John P. Mathew
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  2. Raj N. Patel
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Contributions

J.P.M performed the experiments, simulations and analysed the data. R.N.P fabricated the devices and contributed to experiments. A.B. contributed to the fabrication and experiments. R.V. provided input for the measurements. J.P.M. and M.M.D co-wrote the manuscript. All authors provided input on the manuscript. M.M.D supervised the project.

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Correspondence to Mandar M. Deshmukh.

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Mathew, J., Patel, R., Borah, A. et al. Dynamical strong coupling and parametric amplification of mechanical modes of graphene drums. Nature Nanotech 11, 747–751 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1038/nnano.2016.94

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