Institute for Quantum Information and Center for the Physics of Information, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91125, USA.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2010 Jan 19;107(3):1005-10. doi: 10.1073/pnas.0912969107. Epub 2009 Dec 31.
Recently, remarkable advances have been made in coupling a number of high-Q modes of nano-mechanical systems to high-finesse optical cavities, with the goal of reaching regimes in which quantum behavior can be observed and leveraged toward new applications. To reach this regime, the coupling between these systems and their thermal environments must be minimized. Here we propose a novel approach to this problem, in which optically levitating a nano-mechanical system can greatly reduce its thermal contact, while simultaneously eliminating dissipation arising from clamping. Through the long coherence times allowed, this approach potentially opens the door to ground-state cooling and coherent manipulation of a single mesoscopic mechanical system or entanglement generation between spatially separate systems, even in room-temperature environments. As an example, we show that these goals should be achievable when the mechanical mode consists of the center-of-mass motion of a levitated nanosphere.
最近，人们在将许多高 Q 模式的纳米机械系统与高精细度光学腔耦合方面取得了显著进展，其目标是达到可以观察到量子行为并将其应用于新应用的状态。为了达到这一状态，必须最小化这些系统与其热环境之间的耦合。在这里，我们提出了一种解决这个问题的新方法，其中光学悬浮纳米机械系统可以大大降低其热接触，同时消除由于夹紧而产生的耗散。通过允许的长相干时间，这种方法有可能为单个介观机械系统的基态冷却和相干操纵，甚至在室温环境中为空间分离系统之间的纠缠生成打开大门。作为一个例子，我们表明，当机械模式由悬浮纳米球的质心运动组成时，这些目标应该是可以实现的。
