TY - JOUR
T1 - Optical backaction-evading measurement of a mechanical oscillator
AU - Shomroni, Itay
AU - Qiu, Liu
AU - Malz, Daniel
AU - Nunnenkamp, Andreas
AU - Kippenberg, Tobias J.
N1 - Funding Information:
I.S. acknowledges support by the European Union\u2019s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under Marie Sko\u0142odowka-Curie IF grant agreement number 709147 (GeNoSOS). L.Q. acknowledges support by Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) under Grant Number 163387. D.M. acknowledges support by the UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) under Grant Number EP/M506485/1. AN acknowledges a University Research Fellowship from the Royal Society and support from the Winton Programme for the Physics of Sustainability. T.J.K. acknowledges financial support from an ERC AdG (QuREM). This work was further supported by SNSF-NCCR Quantum Science and Technology (QSIT) under Grant Number 51NF40-160591, and the European Union\u2019s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under grant agreement number 732894 (FET Proactive HOT). All samples were fabricated in the Center of MicroNanoTechnology (CMi) at EPFL.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2019, The Author(s).
PY - 2019/12/1
Y1 - 2019/12/1
N2 - Quantum mechanics imposes a limit on the precision of a continuous position measurement of a harmonic oscillator, due to backaction arising from quantum fluctuations in the measurement field. This standard quantum limit can be surpassed by monitoring only one of the two non-commuting quadratures of the motion, known as backaction-evading measurement. This technique has not been implemented using optical interferometers to date. Here we demonstrate, in a cavity optomechanical system operating in the optical domain, a continuous two-tone backaction-evading measurement of a localized gigahertz-frequency mechanical mode of a photonic-crystal nanobeam cryogenically and optomechanically cooled close to the ground state. Employing quantum-limited optical heterodyne detection, we explicitly show the transition from conventional to backaction-evading measurement. We observe up to 0.67 dB (14%) reduction of total measurement noise, thereby demonstrating the viability of backaction-evading measurements in nanomechanical resonators for optical ultrasensitive measurements of motion and force.
AB - Quantum mechanics imposes a limit on the precision of a continuous position measurement of a harmonic oscillator, due to backaction arising from quantum fluctuations in the measurement field. This standard quantum limit can be surpassed by monitoring only one of the two non-commuting quadratures of the motion, known as backaction-evading measurement. This technique has not been implemented using optical interferometers to date. Here we demonstrate, in a cavity optomechanical system operating in the optical domain, a continuous two-tone backaction-evading measurement of a localized gigahertz-frequency mechanical mode of a photonic-crystal nanobeam cryogenically and optomechanically cooled close to the ground state. Employing quantum-limited optical heterodyne detection, we explicitly show the transition from conventional to backaction-evading measurement. We observe up to 0.67 dB (14%) reduction of total measurement noise, thereby demonstrating the viability of backaction-evading measurements in nanomechanical resonators for optical ultrasensitive measurements of motion and force.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85065331670&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1038/s41467-019-10024-3
DO - 10.1038/s41467-019-10024-3
M3 - Journal article
C2 - 31064984
AN - SCOPUS:85065331670
VL - 10
JO - Nature Communications
JF - Nature Communications
SN - 2041-1723
IS - 1
M1 - 2086
ER -