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Optomechanics

The stress of light cools vibration

Nature Physics volume 8, pages 180–181 (2012)Cite this article

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Brillouin scattering of light is now shown to attenuate the Brownian motion of microscopic acoustic resonators. This electrostrictive phenomenon could be a useful complement to the ponderomotive and photothermal effects that can optically control optomechanical systems.

Optomechanics studies the coupling of light to the motion of mechanical systems. After a pioneering exploration of the basic concepts in the 1970s (ref. 1), it has recently become a burgeoning field of research at the interface of optics and condensed-matter and mesoscopic physics2,3,4,5. A stunning manifestation of optomechanical phenomena is using the mechanical effects of light to cool the motion of a system to ultra-low temperatures and reveal its quantum behaviour. Such experiments have now started to test the tangible quantumness of mesoscopic mechanical systems6,7,8, with the aim of better understanding the classical–quantum boundary and the quantum limits of mechanical sensing.

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Figure 1: The double-optical-resonance-assisted anti-Stokes process.

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  1. Ivan Favero is at the Laboratoire Matériaux et Phénomènes Quantiques, Université Paris Diderot, CNRS, UMR 7162, F-75205 Paris Cedex 13, France,

    Ivan Favero

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Correspondence to Ivan Favero.

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Favero, I. The stress of light cools vibration. Nature Phys 8, 180–181 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1038/nphys2221

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