Towards all-optical optomechanics: An optical spring mirror

TL;DR

This paper proposes using an optical spring to replace mechanical supports in optomechanical systems, enabling cooling to the quantum regime with a high-reflectivity disk mirror held by an optical tweezer.

Contribution

It introduces a scheme employing an optical spring with a disk mirror in a Fabry-Perot cavity to achieve quantum regime cooling.

Findings

Final phonon occupation number of 0.14 achieved

Resolved-sideband cooling regime demonstrated

Potential for observing quantum effects in macroscopic objects

Abstract

The dominant hurdle to the operation of optomechanical systems in the quantum regime is the coupling of the vibrating element to a thermal reservoir via mechanical supports. Here we propose a scheme that uses an optical spring to replace the mechanical support. We show that the resolved-sideband regime of cooling can be reached in a configuration using a high-reflectivity disk mirror held by an optical tweezer as one of the end-mirrors of a Fabry-Perot cavity. We find a final phonon occupation number of the trapped mirror ${\bar n}$= 0.14 for reasonable parameters, well within the quantum regime. This demonstrates the promise of dielectric disks attached to optical springs for the observation of quantum effects in macroscopic objects.