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Q: Fachverband Quantenoptik und Photonik

Q 57: Micromechanical Oscillators II

Q 57.1: Vortrag

Freitag, 12. März 2010, 10:30–10:45, A 320

Exploring Optomechanics with optically levitating dielectric objects — •Anika C. Pflanzer, Oriol Romero-Isart, and J. Ignacio Cirac — Max-Planck-Institut für Quantenoptik, Hans-Kopfermann-Str. 1, D-85748 Garching, Germany

Optomechanical systems hold the promise to facilitate the preparation of superposition states of macroscopic objects. While the main drawback in ground state cooling of the center-of-mass motion in most systems, such as membranes or cantilevers in optical cavities, is their large heating rate, optically levitating sub-wavelength dielectric objects in high-finesse cavities realize a setup with negligible mechanical damping. They do not couple to a thermal reservoir and consequently the main source of heating can be circumvented. The transition to larger objects comes with a coupling of the center-of-mass motion to other modes of the mechanical oscillator, which we take into account by an additional heating rate. Furthermore, the cavity's finesse decreases with the size of the trapped objects. These effects, limiting the maximal size of objects that can be cooled in this cavity system by state-of-the-art quantum optomechanical techniques, are investigated in detail and possible alternatives are discussed.