Cavity Optomechanics with a Laser Engineered Optical Trap

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates laser-induced 3D optical traps in semiconductor microcavities that enable strong photon-phonon interactions, allowing room-temperature cooling of high-frequency acoustic waves and paving the way for advanced optomechanical quantum devices.

Contribution

It introduces a novel method of laser engineering optical traps in microcavities to enhance optomechanical coupling and control high-frequency phonons at room temperature.

Findings

Achieved optomechanical coupling with $g_0/2 ext{π} \, ext{≈} \, 1.7$ MHz.

Demonstrated cooling of 180 GHz acoustic waves from room temperature to 120 K.

Enabled dynamical control of high-frequency optomechanical interactions.

Abstract

Laser engineered exciton-polariton networks could lead to dynamically configurable integrated optical circuitry and quantum devices. Combining cavity optomechanics with electrodynamics in laser configurable hybrid designs constitutes a platform for the vibrational control, conversion, and transport of signals. With this aim we investigate 3D optical traps laser-induced in quantum-well embedded semiconductor planar microcavities. We show that the laser generated and controlled discrete states of the traps dramatically modify the interaction between photons and phonons confined in the resonators, accessing through coupling of photoelastic origin $g_\mathrm{0}/2\pi\sim 1.7$ MHz an optomechanical cooperativity $C>1$ for mW excitation. The quenching of Stokes processes and double-resonant enhancement of anti-Stokes ones involving pairs of discrete optical states in the side-band resolved regime, allows the optomechanical cooling of 180 GHz bulk acoustic waves, starting from room temperature down to $\sim120$ K. These results pave the way for dynamical tailoring of optomechanical actuation in the extremely-high-frequency range (30-300 GHz) for future network and quantum technologies.