Berlin 2014 – scientific programme
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Q: Fachverband Quantenoptik und Photonik
Q 33: Micromechanical oscillators
Q 33.4: Talk
Thursday, March 20, 2014, 11:15–11:30, DO24 1.101
Hybrid optomechanics with ultracold atoms and a micromechanical membrane — •Tobias Kampschulte, Aline Faber, Andreas Jöckel, Maria Korppi, Thomas Lauber, Matthew T. Rakher, and Philipp Treutlein — Universität Basel, Departement Physik, CH-4056 Basel
We have used laser-cooled atoms to sympathetically cool the vibrations of a micromechanical membrane from room-temperature to 2 Kelvin, thereby demonstrating significant coupling between a macroscopic solid-state system and a well-controllable microscopic quantum system. Such a hybrid optomechanical system offers exciting prospects of quantum control of mechanical oscillators via ultracold atoms.
In our experiment, a Si3N4 membrane oscillator is mounted inside an optical cavity. A laser beam couples to the cavity and, at the same time, creates an optical lattice for the atoms outside the cavity. Vibrations of the membrane shift the phase of the reflected light and thereby displace the lattice potential for the atoms. Conversely, when the atoms oscillate in the lattice they imprint their motion onto the light and thereby modulate the radiation pressure force acting on the membrane. Compared to our previous results [1], the cavity increases the sympathetic cooling rate by about 104. With cryogenic pre-cooling and suppression of laser noise, sympathetic cooling of the membrane to the quantum ground state is feasible [2].
[1] S. Camerer et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 107, 223001 (2011)
[2] B. Vogell et al., Phys. Rev. A 87, 023816 (2013)