Master-Slave Locking of Optomechanical Oscillators Over A Long Distance

Abstract

Frequency-locking and other phenomena emerging from nonlinear interactions between mechanical oscillators are of scientific and technological importance. However, existing schemes to observe such behaviour are not scalable over distance. We demonstrate a scheme to couple two independent mechanical oscillators, separated in frequency by 80kHz and situated far from each other (3.2km), via light. Using light as the coupling medium enables this scheme to have low loss and be extended over long distances. This scheme is reversible and can be generalised for arbitrary network configurations.