Resolved Sideband Cooling of a Micromechanical Oscillator

Understand

Micro- and nanoscale opto-mechanical systems provide radiation pressure coupling of optical and mechanical degree of freedom and are actively pursued for their ability to explore quantum mechanical phenomena of macroscopic objects.

• Many of these investigations require preparation of the mechanical system in or close to its quantum ground state.
• Remarkable progress in ground state cooling has been achieved for trapped ions and atoms confined in optical lattices.
• Imperative to this progress has been the technique of resolved sideband cooling, which allows overcoming the inherent temperature limit of Doppler cooling and necessitates a harmonic trapping frequency which exceeds the atomic species' transition rate.