A highly stable and fully tunable open microcavity platform at cryogenic temperatures

TL;DR

This paper presents a fully tunable, highly stable open microcavity platform operable at cryogenic temperatures, enabling enhanced light-matter interactions for quantum and nano systems with unprecedented stability and tunability.

Contribution

The development of a fiber-based, open-access microcavity platform with integrated micro- and nanopositioning that maintains high stability and tunability at cryogenic temperatures is novel.

Findings

Achieves 15 pm passive stability in a cryostat

Reaches 0.8 pm stability with active stabilization

Operates with high finesse and small mode volume

Abstract

Open-access microcavities are a powerful tool to enhance light-matter interactions for solid-state quantum and nano systems and are key to advance applications in quantum technologies. For this purpose, the cavities should simultaneously meet two conflicting requirements - full tunability to cope with spatial and spectral inhomogeneities of a material, and highest stability under operation in a cryogenic environment to maintain resonance conditions. To tackle this challenge, we have developed a fully-tunable, open-access, fiber-based Fabry-P\'erot microcavity platform which can be operated also under increased noise levels in a closed-cycle cryostat. It comprises custom-designed monolithic micro- and nanopositioning elements with up to mm-scale travel range that achieve a passive cavity length stability at low temperature of only 15 pm rms in a closed-cycle cryostat, and 5 pm in a more quiet flow cryostat. This can be further improved by active stabilization, and even higher stability is obtained under direct mechanical contact between the cavity mirrors, yielding 0:8 pm rms during the quiet phase of the closed-cycle cryo cooler. The platform provides operation of cryogenic cavities with high finesse and small mode volume for strong enhancement of light-matter interactions, opening up novel possibilities for experiments with a great variety of quantum and nano materials.