Nonclassical Correlations between Photons and Phonons of Center-of-Mass Motion of a Mechanical Oscillator
Year: 2024
Type: article
Abstract: We demonstrate nonclassical correlations between phonons and photons created using opto-mechanical spontaneous parametric down-conversion in a system based on a soft-clamped ultracoherent membrane oscillator inside of a Fabry-Pérot optical resonator. Non-Gaussian quantum features are demonstrated for the center-of-mass motion of a submillimeter nanogram-scale mechanical oscillator. We show that phonons stored in the mechanical oscillator, when subsequently read out, display strong signs of quantum coherence, which we demonstrate by single-photon counting enabled by our state-of-the-art optical filtering system. We observe a violation of the classical two-time Cauchy-Schwarz inequality between a heralding write photon and a stored phonon with a confidence of >92%.
Source: Physical Review Letters
Institutions: University of Copenhagen, University of Warsaw
Language: English
Subfield: Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics
Field: Physics and Astronomy
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W4403706014