Making light jump: Photonic crystals on trampoline membranes for optomechanics experiments

Joâo Pinto Moura

Research output: ThesisDissertation (TU Delft)

551 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

Cavity optomechanics studies the interaction between mechanical resonators and optical cavities through radiation pressure forces and aims to harness this interaction for applications in the areas of high precision metrology, tests of fundamental quantum mechanics, or quantum information processing. For the most ambitious of these applications it is necessary that the mechanical resonator has a sufficiently high mechanical quality factor such that it can undergo at least a few coherent oscillations before interacting with incoherent thermal phonons. Furthermore, the optomechanical coupling must be large enough to make the interaction between optics and mechanics probable and, ideally, deterministic.
This work pursues both goals using a thin membrane in the middle (MIM) of an optical cavity. This is a common configuration in cavity optomechanics but most experiments to date have lowmechanical quality factors and optomechanical couplings.
Original languageEnglish
Awarding Institution
  • Delft University of Technology
Supervisors/Advisors
  • van der Zant, H.S.J., Supervisor
  • Groeblacher, S., Advisor
Award date3 Apr 2019
Print ISBNs978-90-8593-390-8
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2019

Bibliographical note

Casimir PhD series 2019-06

Keywords

  • Optical cavities
  • mechanical resonators
  • silicon nitride
  • optomechanics
  • photonic crystal slabs
  • optomechanical arrays

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