The role of resonance and bandgaps in high keff2k_\textrm{eff}^2 transducers

Bandgaps formed in a piezoelectric transducer with large coupling, $k_\textrm{eff}^2$, qualitatively modify its electrical response. This regime in which electrical loading strongly couples forward and backward waves occurs in thin-film lithium niobate which has recently become available and amenable to nanopatterning. In this work, we study how resonance and bandgaps modify the design and performance of transducers and delay lines in thin-film lithium niobate. These films are an attractive platform for GHz frequency applications in low-power RF analog signal processing, optomechanics, and quantum devices due to their high coupling, low loss, excellent optical properties, and compatibility with superconducting quantum circuits. We demonstrate aluminum IDTs in this platform for horizontal shear (SH) waves between $1.2$ and $3.3$ GHz and longitudinal waves between $2.1$ and $5.4$ GHz. For the SH waves, we measure a piezoelectric coupling coefficient of $13\%$ and $6.0$ dB/mm propagation losses in delay lines up to $1.2$ mm with a $300$ ns delay in air at room temperature. Reflections from electrical loading when $k_\textrm{eff}^2$ is large lead to a departure from the impulse response model widely used to model surface acoustic wave devices. Finite element method models and an experimental finger-pair sweep are used to characterize the role of resonance in these transducers, illuminating the physics behind the anomalously large motional admittances of these small-footprint IDTs.Comment: 9 pages, 8 figure

Engineering phonon leakage in nanomechanical resonators

We propose and experimentally demonstrate a technique for coupling phonons out of an optomechanical crystal cavity. By designing a perturbation that breaks a symmetry in the elastic structure, we selectively induce phonon leakage without affecting the optical properties. It is shown experimentally via cryogenic measurements that the proposed cavity perturbation causes loss of phonons into mechanical waves on the surface of silicon, while leaving photon lifetimes unaffected. This demonstrates that phonon leakage can be engineered in on-chip optomechanical systems. We experimentally observe large fluctuations in leakage rates that we attribute to fabrication disorder and verify this using simulations. Our technique opens the way to engineering more complex on-chip phonon networks utilizing guided mechanical waves to connect quantum systems.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figure

Mechanical Purcell Filters for Microwave Quantum Machines

In circuit quantum electrodynamics, measuring the state of a superconducting qubit introduces a loss channel which can enhance spontaneous emission through the Purcell effect, thus decreasing qubit lifetime. This decay can be mitigated by performing the measurement through a Purcell filter which forbids signal propagation at the qubit transition frequency. If the filter is also well-matched at the readout cavity frequency, it will protect the qubit from decoherence channels without sacrificing measurement speed. We propose and analyze design for a mechanical Purcell filter, which we also fabricate and characterize at room temperature. The filter is comprised of an array of nanomechanical resonators in thin-film lithium niobate, connected in a ladder topology, with series and parallel resonances arranged to produce a bandpass response. The modest footprint, steep band edges, and absence of cross-talk in these filters make them a novel and appealing alternative to analogous electromagnetic versions currently used in microwave quantum machines.Comment: 5 pages, 5 figure

A single-mode phononic wire

Photons and electrons transmit information to form complex systems and networks. Phonons on the other hand, the quanta of mechanical motion, are often considered only as carriers of thermal energy. Nonetheless, their flow can also be molded in fabricated nanoscale circuits. We design and experimentally demonstrate wires for phonons that transmit information with little loss or scattering across a chip. By patterning the surface of a silicon chip, we completely eliminate all but one channel of phonon conduction. We observe the emergence of low-loss standing waves in millimeter long phononic wires that we address and cool optically. Coherent transport and strong optical coupling to a phononic wire enables new phononic technologies to manipulate information and energy on a chip.Comment: 21 pages, 4+10 figure

Piezoelectric transduction of a wavelength-scale mechanical waveguide

We present a piezoelectric transducer in thin-film lithium niobate that converts a 1.7 GHz microwave signal to a mechanical wave in a single mode of a 1 micron-wide waveguide. We measure a -12 dB conversion efficiency that is limited by material loss. The design method we employ is widely applicable to the transduction of wavelength-scale structures used in emerging phononic circuits like those at the heart of many optomechanical microwave-to-optical quantum converters.Comment: 9 pages, 7 figures. First two authors contributed equally to this wor

Gigahertz phononic integrated circuits on thin-film lithium niobate on sapphire

Acoustic devices play an important role in classical information processing. The slower speed and lower losses of mechanical waves enable compact and efficient elements for delaying, filtering, and storing of electric signals at radio and microwave frequencies. Discovering ways of better controlling the propagation of phonons on a chip is an important step towards enabling larger scale phononic circuits and systems. We present a platform, inspired by decades of advances in integrated photonics, that utilizes the strong piezoelectric effect in a thin film of lithium niobate on sapphire to excite guided acoustic waves immune from leakage into the bulk due to the phononic analogue of index-guiding. We demonstrate an efficient transducer matched to 50 ohm and guiding within a 1-micron wide mechanical waveguide as key building blocks of this platform. Putting these components together, we realize acoustic delay lines, racetrack resonators, and meander line waveguides for sensing applications. To evaluate the promise of this platform for emerging quantum technologies, we characterize losses at low temperature and measure quality factors on the order of 50,000 at 4 kelvin. Finally, we demonstrate phononic four-wave mixing in these circuits and measure the nonlinear coefficients to provide estimates of the power needed for relevant parametric processes.Comment: 15 pages,12 figures, the first two authors contributed equall

Room-temperature Mechanical Resonator with a Single Added or Subtracted Phonon

A room-temperature mechanical oscillator undergoes thermal Brownian motion with an amplitude much larger than the amplitude associated with a single phonon of excitation. This motion can be read out and manipulated using laser light using a cavity-optomechanical approach. By performing a strong quantum measurement, i.e., counting single photons in the sidebands imparted on a laser, we herald the addition and subtraction of single phonons on the 300K thermal motional state of a 4GHz mechanical oscillator. To understand the resulting mechanical state, we implement a tomography scheme and observe highly non-Gaussian phase-space distributions. Using a maximum likelihood method, we infer the density matrix of the oscillator and confirm the counter-intuitive doubling of the mean phonon number resulting from phonon addition and subtraction.Comment: 13 pages, 9 figure

Efficient bidirectional piezo-optomechanical transduction between microwave and optical frequency

Efficient interconversion of both classical and quantum information between microwave and optical frequency is an important engineering challenge. The optomechanical approach with gigahertz-frequency mechanical devices has the potential to be extremely efficient due to the large optomechanical response of common materials, and the ability to localize mechanical energy into a micron-scale volume. However, existing demonstrations suffer from some combination of low optical quality factor, low electrical-to-mechanical transduction efficiency, and low optomechanical interaction rate. Here we demonstrate an on-chip piezo-optomechanical transducer that systematically addresses all these challenges to achieve nearly three orders of magnitude improvement in conversion efficiency over previous work. Our modulator demonstrates acousto-optic modulation with $V_{\pi} = {0.02}$ V. We show bidirectional conversion efficiency of $10^{-5}$ with ${3.3}$ microwatts red-detuned optical pump, and $5.5\%$ with $323$ microwatts blue-detuned pump. Further study of quantum transduction at millikelvin temperatures is required to understand how the efficiency and added noise are affected by reduced mechanical dissipation, thermal conductivity, and thermal capacity.Comment: 20 pages, 14 figure

Nanobenders: efficient piezoelectric actuators for widely tunable nanophotonics at CMOS-level voltages

Tuning and reconfiguring nanophotonic components is needed to realize systems incorporating many components. The electrostatic force can deform a structure and tune its optical response. Despite the success of electrostatic actuators, they suffer from trade-offs between tuning voltage, tuning range, and on-chip area. Piezoelectric actuation could resolve all these challenges. Standard materials possess piezoelectric coefficients on the order of ${0.01}~\text{nm/V}$, suggesting extremely small on-chip actuation using potentials on the order of one volt. Here we propose and demonstrate compact piezoelectric actuators, called nanobenders, that transduce tens of nanometers per volt. By leveraging the non-uniform electric field from submicron electrodes, we generate bending of a piezoelectric nanobeam. Combined with a sliced photonic crystal cavity to sense displacement, we show tuning of an optical resonance by $\sim 5~\text{nm/V}~({0.6}~\text{THz/V})$ and between $1520$ and $1560~\text{nm}$ ($\sim 400$ linewidths) with only ${4}~\text{V}$. Finally, we consider other tunable nanophotonic components enabled by nanobenders.Comment: 24 pages, 5 + 12 figure

Strong dispersive coupling between a mechanical resonator and a fluxonium superconducting qubit

We demonstrate strong dispersive coupling between a fluxonium superconducting qubit and a 690 megahertz mechanical oscillator, extending the reach of circuit quantum acousto-dynamics (cQAD) experiments into a new range of frequencies. We have engineered a qubit-phonon coupling rate of $g\approx2\pi\times14~\text{MHz}$, and achieved a dispersive interaction that exceeds the decoherence rates of both systems while the qubit and mechanics are highly nonresonant ($\Delta/g\gtrsim10$). Leveraging this strong coupling, we perform phonon number-resolved measurements of the mechanical resonator and investigate its dissipation and dephasing properties. Our results demonstrate the potential for fluxonium-based hybrid quantum systems, and a path for developing new quantum sensing and information processing schemes with phonons at frequencies below 700 MHz to significantly expand the toolbox of cQAD.Comment: 22 pages, 12 figure