Monolayer graphene as dissipative membrane in an optical resonator

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates how a monolayer graphene membrane can be coupled to an optical cavity, enabling controlled dissipative interactions that could advance laser-cooling techniques in optomechanics.

Contribution

It experimentally shows tunable dissipative coupling between graphene and an optical cavity, surpassing dispersive effects, and measures the optical damage threshold of graphene.

Findings

Dissipative coupling can be tailored to dominate over dispersive coupling.

Graphene's optical damage threshold at 780nm is approximately 1.8 MW/cm².

Controlled dissipation in optomechanical systems is achievable with graphene membranes.

Abstract

We experimentally demonstrate coupling of an atomically thin, free-standing graphene membrane to an optical cavity. By changing the position of the membrane along the standing-wave field of the cavity we tailor the dissipative coupling between the membrane and the cavity, and we show that the dissipative coupling can outweigh the dispersive coupling. Such a system, for which controlled dissipation prevails dispersion, will prove useful for novel laser-cooling schemes in optomechanics. In addition, we have determined the continuous-wave optical damage threshold of free-standing monolayer graphene of 1.8(4)~MW/cm$^2$ at 780nm.