Fast optical cooling of a nanomechanical cantilever by a dynamical Stark-shift gate

TL;DR

This paper presents a laser-cooling scheme for nanomechanical cantilevers using a dynamical Stark-shift gate, enabling efficient cooling even at low frequencies and with weak lasers, approaching the ground state rapidly.

Contribution

It introduces a novel cooling method that enhances efficiency by avoiding off-resonant transitions, applicable to low-frequency nanomechanical systems.

Findings

Effective cooling near the vibrational ground state achieved

Works with low-frequency modes and weak laser power

Fast cooling process demonstrated

Abstract

The efficient cooling of the nanomechanical resonators is essential to exploration of quantum properties of the macroscopic or mesoscopic systems. We propose such a laser-cooling scheme for a nanomechanical cantilever, which works even for the low-frequency mechanical mode and under weak cooling lasers. The cantilever is attached by a diamond nitrogen-vacancy center under a strong magnetic field gradient and the cooling is assisted by a dynamical Stark-shift gate. Our scheme can effectively enhance the desired cooling efficiency by avoiding the off-resonant and unexpected carrier transitions, and thereby cool the cantilever down to the vicinity of the vibrational ground state in a fast fashion.