Dresden 2011 – scientific programme

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ISS: Intersectional Sessions

ISS 1: Micro Mechanical Oscillator 1 (Q, TT)

ISS 1.5: Talk

Monday, March 14, 2011, 11:30–11:45, HSZ 02

Optomechanical cooling close to the ground state — •Rémi Rivière¹, Stefan Weis^1,2, Samuel Deléglise^1,2, Emanuel Gavartin², Olivier Arcizet³, Albert Schliesser^1,2, and Tobias Kippenberg^1,2 — ¹Max-Planck-Institut für Quantenoptik, 85748 Garching, Germany — ²Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), 1015 Lausanne, Switzerland — ³Institut Néel, 38042 Grenoble, France

Optomechanical cooling of a mechanical oscillator mediated by the radiation pressure of the light enables preparing a macroscopic system in its quantum ground state. In our experiment, the vehicle used is a silica microtoroid resonator, hosting both optical and mechanical degrees of freedom within the same device. Combining both cryogenic and optomechanical cooling, we demonstrate an occupancy as low as 9±1 phonons, for which limitations to further phonon occupation reduction are only technical. The forthcoming ground state will then enable the study of quantum effects in a macro-object.