Strong dispersive coupling of a high finesse cavity to a micromechanical membrane

Understand

Macroscopic mechanical objects and electromagnetic degrees of freedom couple to each other via radiation pressure.

• Optomechanical systems with sufficiently strong coupling are predicted to exhibit quantum effects and are a topic of considerable interest.
• Devices reaching this regime would offer new types of control of the quantum state of both light and matter and would provide a new arena in which to explore the boundary between quantum and classical physics.
• Experiments to date have achieved sufficient optomechanical coupling to laser-cool mechanical devices but have not yet reached the quantum regime.