Proposal for an Optomechanical Traveling Wave Phonon-Photon Translator

TL;DR

This paper proposes an optomechanical system that efficiently and reversibly converts photons to phonons, with potential applications in quantum information processing and microwave photonics.

Contribution

It introduces a novel phonon-photon translator based on coupled photonic and phononic crystal circuits, analyzed both classically and quantum mechanically.

Findings

Efficient photon-phonon conversion demonstrated.

Potential for optical wavelength conversion and quantum memory.

Applications in circuit QED and quantum state transfer.

Abstract

In this article we describe a general optomechanical system for converting photons to phonons in an efficient, and reversible manner. We analyze classically and quantum mechanically the conversion process and proceed to a more concrete description of a phonon-photon translator formed from coupled photonic and phononic crystal planar circuits. Applications of the phonon-photon translator to RF-microwave photonics and circuit QED, including proposals utilizing this system for optical wavelength conversion, long-lived quantum memory and state transfer from optical to superconducting qubits are considered.