Recently, remarkable advances have been made in coupling a number of high-Q modes of nano-mechanical systems to high-finesse optical cavities, with the goal of reaching regimes in which quantum behavior can be observed and leveraged toward new applications. To reach this regime, the coupling between these systems and their thermal environments must be minimized. Here we propose a novel approach to this problem, in which optically levitating a nano-mechanical system can greatly reduce its thermal contact, while simultaneously eliminating dissipation arising from clamping. Through the long coherence times allowed, this approach potentially opens the door to ground-state cooling and coherent manipulation of a single mesoscopic mechanical system or entanglement generation between spatially separate systems, even in room-temperature environments. As an example, we show that these goals should be achievable when the mechanical mode consists of the center-of-mass motion of a levitated nanosphere.ne of the most intriguing questions associated with quantum theory is whether effects such as quantum coherence and entanglement can be observed at mesoscopic or macroscopic scales. As a first step toward resolving this question, recently much effort has been directed toward quantum state preparation of high-Q modes of nano-and micro-mechanical oscillators-in particular, cooling such modes to their quantum ground state (1). Reaching a regime in which quantum properties such as entanglement (2) emerge is not only of fundamental interest but could lead to new applications in fields such as ultrasensitive detection (3, 4) and quantum information science (5, 6). To reach this regime, it is critical that the thermalization and decoherence rates of these systems be minimized by reducing the coupling to their thermal reservoirs. Thus far, this has necessitated the use of cryogenic operating environments. From an engineering standpoint, it would also be desirable to reduce the dissipation and thermalization rates of these systems through their clamping and material supports (7), so that these rates might approach their fundamental material limits (8).Here we propose a unique approach toward this problem, wherein the material supports are completely eliminated by optically levitating (9) a nano-mechanical system inside a FabryPerot optical cavity. Indeed, since the pioneering work of Ashkin on optical trapping of dielectric particles (9) (in the classical domain), it has been realized that levitation under good vacuum conditions can lead to extremely low mechanical damping rates (10, 11). We show that such an approach should also facilitate the emergence of quantum behavior even in room-temperature environments, when the particles are of subwavelength scale such that the effects of recoil heating due to scattered photons become small. As a specific example, we show that the center-ofmass (CM) motion of a levitated nanosphere can be optically self-cooled (12-14) to the ground state starting from room temperature. This system constitutes ...

In real-time quantum feedback protocols, the record of a continuous measurement is used to stabilize a desired quantum state. Recent years have seen successful applications of these protocols in a variety of well-isolated micro-systems, including microwave photons and superconducting qubits. However, stabilizing the quantum state of a tangibly massive object, such as a mechanical oscillator, remains very challenging: the main obstacle is environmental decoherence, which places stringent requirements on the timescale in which the state must be measured. Here we describe a position sensor that is capable of resolving the zero-point motion of a solid-state, 4.3-megahertz nanomechanical oscillator in the timescale of its thermal decoherence, a basic requirement for real-time (Markovian) quantum feedback control tasks, such as ground-state preparation. The sensor is based on evanescent optomechanical coupling to a high-Q microcavity, and achieves an imprecision four orders of magnitude below that at the standard quantum limit for a weak continuous position measurement--a 100-fold improvement over previous reports--while maintaining an imprecision-back-action product that is within a factor of five of the Heisenberg uncertainty limit. As a demonstration of its utility, we use the measurement as an error signal with which to feedback cool the oscillator. Using radiation pressure as an actuator, the oscillator is cold damped with high efficiency: from a cryogenic-bath temperature of 4.4 kelvin to an effective value of 1.1 ± 0.1 millikelvin, corresponding to a mean phonon number of 5.3 ± 0.6 (that is, a ground-state probability of 16 per cent). Our results set a new benchmark for the performance of a linear position sensor, and signal the emergence of mechanical oscillators as practical subjects for measurement-based quantum control.

Extreme stresses can be produced in nanoscale structures; this feature has been used to realize enhanced materials properties, such as the high mobility of silicon in modern transistors. We show how nanoscale stress can be used to realize exceptionally low mechanical dissipation when combined with "soft-clamping"-a form of phononic engineering. Specifically, using a nonuniform phononic crystal pattern, we colocalize the strain and flexural motion of a free-standing silicon nitride nanobeam. Ringdown measurements at room temperature reveal string-like vibrational modes with quality () factors as high as 800 million and × frequency exceeding 10 hertz. These results illustrate a promising route for engineering ultracoherent nanomechanical devices.

We study high-stress SiN films for reaching the quantum regime with mesoscopic oscillators connected to a room-temperature thermal bath, for which there are stringent requirements on the oscillators' quality factors and frequencies. Our SiN films support mechanical modes with unprecedented products of mechanical quality factor Q(m) and frequency nu(m) reaching Q(m)nu(m) approximately or = 2 x 10(13) Hz. The SiN membranes exhibit a low optical absorption characterized by Im(n) < or approximately equal to 10(-5) at 935 nm, representing a 15 times reduction for SiN membranes. We have developed an apparatus to simultaneously cool the motion of multiple mechanical modes based on a short, high-finesse Fabry-Perot cavity and present initial cooling results along with future possibilities.

Gallium phosphide (GaP) is an indirect bandgap semiconductor used widely in solid-state lighting. Despite numerous intriguing optical properties-including large χ (2) and χ (3) coefficients, a high refractive index (> 3), and transparency from visible to long-infrared wavelengths (0.55 − 11 µm)its application as an integrated photonics material has been little studied. Here we introduce GaPon-insulator as a platform for nonlinear photonics, exploiting a direct wafer bonding approach to realize integrated waveguides with 1.2 dB/cm loss in the telecommunications C-band (on par with Si-on-insulator). High quality (Q > 10 5 ), grating-coupled ring resonators are fabricated and studied. Employing a modulation transfer approach, we obtain a direct experimental estimate of the nonlinear index of GaP at telecommunication wavelengths: n2 = 1.2(5) × 10 −17 m 2 /W. We also observe Kerr frequency comb generation in resonators with engineered dispersion. Parametric threshold powers as low as 3 mW are realized, followed by broadband (> 100 nm) frequency combs with sub-THz spacing, frequency-doubled combs and, in a separate device, efficient Raman lasing. These results signal the emergence of GaP-on-insulator as a novel platform for integrated nonlinear photonics.