We describe the design, fabrication, and measurement of a cavity
opto-mechanical system consisting of two nanobeams of silicon nitride in the
near-field of each other, forming a so-called "zipper" cavity. A photonic
crystal patterning is applied to the nanobeams to localize optical and
mechanical energy to the same cubic-micron-scale volume. The picrogram-scale
mass of the structure, along with the strong per-photon optical gradient force,
results in a giant optical spring effect. In addition, a novel damping regime
is explored in which the small heat capacity of the zipper cavity results in
blue-detuned opto-mechanical damping.Comment: 15 pages, 4 figure

A Ashkin

A Schliesser

B Ilic

B-S Song

C Höhberger

CA Regal

F Marquardt

I Tittonen

J Chan

Jasper Chan

JD Thompson

K Srinivasan

Kerry J. Vahala

M Eichenfield

M Hossein-Zadeh

M Li

M Notomi

Matt Eichenfield

ML Povinelli

MW McCutcheon

O Arcizet

Oskar Painter

PT Rakich

RH Olson

Ryan Camacho

S Gigan

SS Verbridge

T Corbitt

TD Stowe

TJ Kippenberg

Y Takahashi

English

arXiv

Crossref

A picogram- and nanometre-scale photonic-crystal optomechanical cavity

The dynamic back-action caused by electromagnetic forces (radiation pressure) in optical and microwave cavities is of growing interest. Back-action cooling, for example, is being pursued as a means of achieving the quantum ground state of macroscopic mechanical oscillators. Work in the optical domain has revolved around millimetre- or micrometre-scale structures using the radiation pressure force. By comparison, in microwave devices, low-loss superconducting structures have been used for gradient-force-mediated coupling to a nanomechanical oscillator of picogram mass. Here we describe measurements of an optical system consisting of a pair of specially patterned nanoscale beams in which optical and mechanical energies are simultaneously localized to a cubic-micron-scale volume, and for which large per-photon optical gradient forces are realized. The resulting scale of the per-photon force and the mass of the structure enable the exploration of cavity optomechanical regimes in which, for example, the mechanical rigidity of the structure is dominantly provided by the internal light field itself. In addition to precision measurement and sensitive force detection, nano-optomechanics may find application in reconfigurable and tunable photonic systems, light-based radio-frequency communication and the generation of giant optical nonlinearities for wavelength conversion and optical buffering

Eichenfield, Matt

Camacho, Ryan

Chan, Jasper

Vahala, Kerry J.

Painter, Oskar

Caltech Authors - Main

https://authors.library.caltech.edu/14695/5/0812.2953v1.pdf