Amir Safevi-Naeini, California Institute of Technology
Abstract
Mechanical resonators are the most basic and ubiquitous physical systems known. In on‐chip form, they are used to process high frequency signals in every cell phone, television, and laptop. They have also been a critical part of progress in quantum information sciences in the last few decades in different shapes and forms, with kilogram‐scale mirrors for gravitational wave detection measuring motion at its quantum limits, and the motion of single ions being used to link qubits for quantum computation.
In this talk, I will present our recent work with mechanical systems in the megahertz to gigahertz frequency range, formed by nanofabricating novel photonic/phononic structures on a silicon chip. These structures are designed to have both optical and mechanical resonances, and laser light is used to address and manipulate their motional degrees of freedom through radiation pressure forces. We laser cool these mechanical resonators to their ground states, and observe for the first time the quantum zero‐point motion of a nanomechanical resonator. Conversely, we show that engineered mechanical resonances drastically modify the optical response of our structures, creating large effective optical nonlinearities not present in bulk silicon. We experimentally demonstrate aspects of these nonlinearities by observing 'electromagnetically induced transparency' and light slowed down to 6 m/s, as well as wavelength conversion, and generation of nonclassical optical radiation.