Description du projet
Une nouvelle voie pour faire progresser l’optomécanique quantique
Les industries modernes et les secteurs scientifiques repoussent sans cesse les limites de la technologie, dans le but de réaliser des systèmes toujours plus petits et plus avancés. Dans cette optique, la recherche en optomécanique quantique et les oscillateurs micro- et nanomécaniques à haut rendement ont pris une importance considérable. Le projet QnanoMECA, financé par le CER, entend tirer parti d’une avancée récente qui consiste à faire léviter des nano-objets dans le vide. Cette approche répond aux limites actuelles du domaine de l’optomécanique. En s’appuyant sur ces avancées, le projet vise à réaliser un refroidissement pratique de l’état fondamental à température ambiante, ce qui constitue une étape importante dans ce domaine. L’objectif ultime est de faire progresser le domaine de l’optomécanique, en encourageant de nouvelles avancées et en facilitant des découvertes plus poussées.
Objectif
Micro- and nano-mechanical oscillators with high quality (Q)-factors have gained much interest for their capability to sense very small forces. Recently, this interest has exponentially grown owing to their potential to push the current limits of experimental quantum physics and contribute to our further understanding of quantum effects with large objects. Despite recent advances in the design and fabrication of mechanical resonators, their Q-factor has so far been limited by coupling to the environment through physical contact to a support. This limitation is foreseen to become a bottleneck in the field which might hinder reaching the performances required for some of the envisioned applications. A very attractive alternative to conventional mechanical resonators is based on optically levitated nano-objects in vacuum. In particular, a nanoparticle trapped in the focus of a laser beam in vacuum is mechanically disconnected from its environment and hence does not suffer from clamping losses. First experiments on this configuration have confirmed the unique capability of this approach and demonstrated the largest mechanical Q-factor ever observed at room temperature. The QnanoMECA project aims at capitalizing on the unique capability of optically levitating nanoparticles to advance the field of optomechanics well beyond the current state-of-the-art. The project is first aimed at bringing us closer to ground-state cooling at room temperature. We will also explore new paradigms of optomechanics based on the latest advances of nano-optics. The unique optomechanical properties of the developed systems based on levitated nanoparticles will be used to explore new physical regimes whose experimental observation has been so far hindered by current experimental limitations.
Champ scientifique
Programme(s)
Régime de financement
ERC-COG - Consolidator GrantInstitution d’accueil
8092 Zuerich
Suisse