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Abstract Integrated optomechanical systems are a leading platform for manipulating, sensing, and distributing quantum information, but are limited by residual optical heating. Here, we demonstrate a two-dimensional optomechanical crystal (OMC) geometry with increased thermal anchoring and a mechanical mode at 7.4 GHz, well aligned with the operation range of cryogenic microwave hardware and piezoelectric transducers. The eight times better thermalization than current one-dimensional OMCs, large optomechanical coupling rates,g0/2π ≈ 880 kHz, and high optical quality factors,Qopt = 2.4 × 105, allow ground-state cooling (nm = 0.32) of the acoustic mode from 3 K and entering the optomechanical strong-coupling regime. In pulsed sideband asymmetry measurements, we show ground-state operation (nm < 0.45) at temperatures below 10 mK, with repetition rates up to 3 MHz, generating photon-phonon pairs at ≈ 147 kHz. Our results extend optomechanical system capabilities and establish a robust foundation for future microwave-to-optical transducers with entanglement rates exceeding state-of-the-art superconducting qubit decoherence rates.
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Ultracompact 4H-silicon carbide optomechanical resonator with f m · Q m exceeding 10 13 Hz
Silicon carbide (SiC) has great potential for optomechanical applications due to its outstanding optical and mechanical properties. However, challenges associated with SiC nanofabrication have constrained its adoption in optomechanical devices, as embodied by the considerable optical loss or lack of integrated optical access in existing mechanical resonators. In this work, we overcome such challenges and demonstrate a low-loss, ultracompact optomechanical resonator in an integrated 4H-SiC-on-insulator (4H-SiCOI) photonic platform for the first time, to our knowledge. Based on a suspended 4.3-μm-radius microdisk, the SiC optomechanical resonator features low optical loss (<1 dB/cm), a high mechanical frequencyfmof 0.95×109 Hz, a mechanical quality factorQmof 1.92×104, and a footprint of <1×10−5 mm2. The correspondingfm·Qmproduct is estimated to be 1.82×1013 Hz, which is among the highest reported values of optomechanical cavities tested in ambient environment at room temperature. In addition, the strong optomechanical coupling in the SiC microdisk enables coherent regenerative optomechanical oscillations at a threshold optical dropped power of 14 μW, which also supports efficient harmonic generation at increased power levels. With such competitive performance, we envision a range of chip-scale optomechanical applications to be enabled by the low-loss 4H-SiCOI platform.
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- PAR ID:
- 10638743
- Publisher / Repository:
- Optica
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Photonics Research
- Volume:
- 13
- Issue:
- 9
- ISSN:
- 2327-9125
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 2531
- Subject(s) / Keyword(s):
- SiC microdisk
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
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Accepted Manuscript
- Journal Article:
- https://doi.org/10.1364/PRJ.567674
