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Q: Fachverband Quantenoptik und Photonik

Q 67: Optomechanics III

Q 67.5: Vortrag

Freitag, 10. März 2023, 12:00–12:15, F442

Optomechanics with a torsional mode of an optical nanofiber — •Jihao Jia, Sebastian Pucher, Arno Rauschenbeutel, Philipp Schneeweiß, Felix Tebbenjohanns, and Jürgen Volz — Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Germany

Tapered optical fibers (TOFs) with a sub-wavelength-diameter waist, so-called optical nanofibers, have proven to be extremely versatile tools with applications ranging from telecommunication devices and sensors to trapping and optically interfacing laser-cooled atoms. Surprisingly, in the realm of optomechanics, the mechanical motion of the nanofiber waist of such TOFs is so far largely unexplored. Here we show experimentally that the torsional motion of the nanofiber waist of a TOF can be extremely well decoupled from the environment, reaching quality factors of up to 10 million. By analyzing the polarization fluctuations of a probe light field transmitted through the TOF, we measure the nanofiber's torsional motion in real time. Feeding back this signal to the nanofiber, we cool its fundamental torsional mode by several orders of magnitude to sub-Kelvin temperatures. Based on our observations, we discuss the prospects of ground-state cooling. Our results show that optical nanofibers represent a competitive optomechanical platform, which may enable new hybrid quantum systems, e.g., by coupling the torsional motion to cold atoms that are trapped in the evanescent field surrounding the nanofiber.