Kavli Institute of Nanoscience, Department of Quantum Nanoscience, Delft University of Technology, 2628CJ Delft, Netherlands.
Centre de Nanosciences et de Nanotechnologies, CNRS, Université Paris-Sud, Université Paris-Saclay, C2N, 91767 Palaiseau, France.
Phys Rev Lett. 2019 Oct 18;123(16):163602. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.123.163602.
Recent years have seen extraordinary progress in creating quantum states of mechanical oscillators, leading to great interest in potential applications for such systems in both fundamental as well as applied quantum science. One example is the use of these devices as transducers between otherwise disparate quantum systems. In this regard, a promising approach is to build integrated piezoelectric optomechanical devices that are then coupled to microwave circuits. Optical absorption, low quality factors, and other challenges have up to now prevented operation in the quantum regime, however. Here, we design and characterize such a piezoelectric optomechanical device fabricated from gallium phosphide in which a 2.9 GHz mechanical mode is coupled to a high quality factor optical resonator in the telecom band. The large electronic band gap and the resulting low optical absorption of this new material, on par with devices fabricated from silicon, allows us to demonstrate quantum behavior of the structure. This not only opens the way for realizing noise-free quantum transduction between microwaves and optics, but in principle also from various color centers with optical transitions in the near visible to the telecom band.
近年来，在机械振荡器的量子态创建方面取得了非凡的进展，这使得人们对这些系统在基础和应用量子科学中的潜在应用产生了极大的兴趣。例如，将这些设备用作其他不同量子系统之间的传感器。在这方面，一种很有前途的方法是构建集成的压电光机械设备，然后将其与微波电路耦合。然而，到目前为止，光学吸收、低品质因数和其他挑战一直阻止了它们在量子领域的运行。在这里，我们设计并表征了一种由磷化镓制成的压电光机械器件，其中 2.9GHz 的机械模式与电信波段的高品质因数光谐振器耦合。这种新材料的大电子能带隙和由此产生的低光学吸收率与由硅制成的器件相当，这使得我们能够展示结构的量子行为。这不仅为在微波和光学之间实现无噪声量子转换开辟了道路，而且原则上也为近可见到电信波段的各种色心的光学跃迁开辟了道路。
