Bulk crystalline optomechanics

Control of long-lived, high-frequency phonons using light offers a path towards creating robust quantum links, and could lead to tools for precision metrology with applications to quantum information processing. Optomechanical systems based on bulk acoustic-wave resonators are well suited for this g...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Nature physics 2018-06, Vol.14 (6), p.601-607
Main Authors: Renninger, W. H., Kharel, P., Behunin, R. O., Rakich, P. T.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
639/624/400/385
639/766/1130/2800
Acoustics
Atomic
Classical and Continuum Physics
Complex Systems
Condensed Matter Physics
Coupling
Cryoforming
Cryogenic temperature
Data processing
Mathematical and Computational Physics
Molecular
Optical and Plasma Physics
Opto-mechanics
Phonons
Physics
Physics and Astronomy
Piezoelectricity
Quantum phenomena
Quantum theory
Resonators
Theoretical
Wave dispersion
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Summary:Control of long-lived, high-frequency phonons using light offers a path towards creating robust quantum links, and could lead to tools for precision metrology with applications to quantum information processing. Optomechanical systems based on bulk acoustic-wave resonators are well suited for this goal in light of their high quality factors, and because they do not suffer from surface interactions as much as their microscale counterparts. However, so far these phonons have been accessible only electromechanically, using piezoelectric interactions. Here, we demonstrate customizable optomechanical coupling to macroscopic phonon modes of a bulk acoustic-wave resonator at cryogenic temperatures. These phonon modes, which are formed by shaping the surfaces of a crystal into a plano-convex phononic resonator, yield appreciable optomechanical coupling rates, providing access to high acoustic quality factors (4.2 × 10 7 ) at high phonon frequencies (13 GHz). This simple approach, which uses bulk properties rather than nanostructural control, is appealing for the ability to engineer optomechanical systems at high frequencies that are robust against thermal decoherence. Moreover, we show that this optomechanical system yields a unique form of dispersive symmetry-breaking that enables phonon heating or cooling without an optical cavity. Optomechanical coupling to macroscopic phonon modes of a bulk acoustic-wave resonator is demonstrated, providing access to high acoustics quality factors for phononic modes at high frequencies that are robust to decoherence.
ISSN:1745-2473
1745-2481
DOI:10.1038/s41567-018-0090-3