Nonlinear nanomechanical resonators approaching the quantum ground state

An open question in mechanics is whether mechanical resonators can be made nonlinear with vibrations approaching the quantum ground state. This requires engineering a mechanical nonlinearity far beyond what has been realized thus far. Here we discovered a mechanism to boost the Duffing nonlinearity...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:arXiv.org 2022-11
Main Authors: Samanta, C, De Bonis, S L, Møller, C B, Tormo-Queralt, R, Yang, W, Urgell, C, Stamenic, B, Thibeault, B, Jin, Y, Czaplewski, D A, Pistolesi, F, Bachtold, A
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Anharmonicity
Coupling
Electron tunneling
Ground state
Nonlinearity
Qubits (quantum computing)
Resonators
Schroedinger cat state
Simulators
Single electrons
Thermal energy
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Summary:An open question in mechanics is whether mechanical resonators can be made nonlinear with vibrations approaching the quantum ground state. This requires engineering a mechanical nonlinearity far beyond what has been realized thus far. Here we discovered a mechanism to boost the Duffing nonlinearity by coupling the vibrations of a nanotube resonator to single-electron tunneling and by operating the system in the ultrastrong coupling regime. Remarkably, thermal vibrations become highly nonlinear when lowering the temperature. The average vibration amplitude at the lowest temperature is 13 times the zero-point motion, with approximately 42% of the thermal energy stored in the anharmonic part of the potential. Our work paves the way for realizing mechanical Schrodinger cat states [1], mechanical qubits [2, 3], and quantum simulators emulating the electron-phonon coupling [4].
ISSN:2331-8422
DOI:10.48550/arxiv.2211.07632