Quantum ground state and single-phonon control of a mechanical resonator

Quantum mechanics provides a highly accurate description of a wide variety of physical systems. However, a demonstration that quantum mechanics applies equally to macroscopic mechanical systems has been a long-standing challenge, hindered by the difficulty of cooling a mechanical mode to its quantum ground state. The temperatures required are typically far below those attainable with standard cryogenic methods, so significant effort has been devoted to developing alternative cooling techniques. Once in the ground state, quantum-limited measurements must then be demonstrated. Here, using conventional cryogenic refrigeration, we show that we can cool a mechanical mode to its quantum ground state by using a microwave-frequency mechanical oscillator—a ‘quantum drum’—coupled to a quantum bit, which is used to measure the quantum state of the resonator. We further show that we can controllably create single quantum excitations (phonons) in the resonator, thus taking the first steps to complete quantum control of a mechanical system.

[1]  A. Peres When is a quantum measurement , 1986 .

[2]  A. Cleland,et al.  Quantum Mechanics of a Macroscopic Variable: The Phase Difference of a Josephson Junction , 1988, Science.

[3]  R. Ruby,et al.  Micromachined thin film bulk acoustic resonators , 1994, Proceedings of IEEE 48th Annual Symposium on Frequency Control.

[4]  Oliver Ambacher,et al.  Growth and applications of Group III-nitrides , 1998 .

[5]  J. D. Larson,et al.  Modified Butterworth-Van Dyke circuit for FBAR resonators and automated measurement system , 2000, 2000 IEEE Ultrasonics Symposium. Proceedings. An International Symposium (Cat. No.00CH37121).

[6]  M. Feigel’man,et al.  Landau-Zener interferometry for qubits , 2001, cond-mat/0110490.

[7]  A. Heidmann,et al.  Quantum limits of cold damping with optomechanical coupling , 2001, quant-ph/0107138.

[8]  Gerard J. Milburn,et al.  Quantum electromechanical systems , 2001, SPIE Micro + Nano Materials, Devices, and Applications.

[9]  M. Blencowe,et al.  Entanglement and decoherence of a micromechanical resonator via coupling to a Cooper-pair box. , 2002, Physical review letters.

[10]  A. Cleland,et al.  Nanometre-scale displacement sensing using a single electron transistor , 2003, Nature.

[11]  P. Zoller,et al.  Ground-state cooling of mechanical resonators , 2003, cond-mat/0310229.

[12]  A N Cleland,et al.  Superconducting qubit storage and entanglement with nanomechanical resonators. , 2004, Physical review letters.

[13]  B. Camarota,et al.  Approaching the Quantum Limit of a Nanomechanical Resonator , 2004, Science.

[14]  Nam Kuang-Woo,et al.  Piezoelectric Properties of Aluminum Nitride for Thin Film Bulk Acoustic Wave Resonator , 2005 .

[15]  K. Berggren,et al.  Mach-Zehnder Interferometry in a Strongly Driven Superconducting Qubit , 2005, Science.

[16]  T. Briant,et al.  Radiation-pressure cooling and optomechanical instability of a micromirror , 2006, Nature.

[17]  M. Steffen,et al.  State tomography of capacitively shunted phase qubits with high fidelity. , 2006, Physical review letters.

[18]  Dirk Bouwmeester,et al.  Sub-kelvin optical cooling of a micromechanical resonator , 2006, Nature.

[19]  S. Gigan,et al.  v 1 1 1 Ju l 2 00 6 Self-cooling of a micro-mirror by radiation pressure , 2006 .

[20]  S. Gigan,et al.  Self-cooling of a micromirror by radiation pressure , 2006, Nature.

[21]  T J Kippenberg,et al.  Theory of ground state cooling of a mechanical oscillator using dynamical backaction. , 2007, Physical review letters.

[22]  Florian Marquardt,et al.  Quantum theory of cavity-assisted sideband cooling of mechanical motion. , 2007, Physical review letters.

[23]  M. Blencowe,et al.  Quantum analysis of a linear dc SQUID mechanical displacement detector , 2007, 0704.0457.

[24]  T. Puppe,et al.  Nonlinear spectroscopy of photons bound to one atom , 2008, 0803.2712.

[25]  J. Teufel,et al.  Measuring nanomechanical motion with a microwave cavity interferometer , 2008, 0801.1827.

[26]  O. Arcizet,et al.  Resolved Sideband Cooling of a Micromechanical Oscillator , 2007, 0709.4036.

[27]  Erik Lucero,et al.  Microwave dielectric loss at single photon energies and millikelvin temperatures , 2008, 0802.2404.

[28]  Erik Lucero,et al.  Generation of Fock states in a superconducting quantum circuit , 2008, Nature.

[29]  S. Girvin,et al.  Strong dispersive coupling of a high-finesse cavity to a micromechanical membrane , 2007, Nature.

[30]  Michael R. Vanner,et al.  Demonstration of an ultracold micro-optomechanical oscillator in a cryogenic cavity , 2009, 0901.1801.

[31]  John M. Martinis,et al.  Superconducting phase qubits , 2009, Quantum Inf. Process..

[32]  Hailin Wang,et al.  Resolved-sideband and cryogenic cooling of an optomechanical resonator , 2009 .

[33]  M. Aspelmeyer,et al.  Observation of strong coupling between a micromechanical resonator and an optical cavity field , 2009, Nature.

[34]  T. Kippenberg,et al.  Resolved-sideband cooling and position measurement of a micromechanical oscillator close to the Heisenberg uncertainty limit , 2009 .

[35]  P. M. Echternach,et al.  Nanomechanical measurements of a superconducting qubit , 2009, Nature.

[36]  R. Rosenfeld Nature , 2009, Otolaryngology--head and neck surgery : official journal of American Academy of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery.

[37]  Erik Lucero,et al.  Violation of Bell's inequality in Josephson phase qubits , 2009, Nature.

[38]  Erik Lucero,et al.  Synthesizing arbitrary quantum states in a superconducting resonator , 2009, Nature.

[39]  J. B. Hertzberg,et al.  Preparation and detection of a mechanical resonator near the ground state of motion , 2009, Nature.