Skip to content

Self-cooling of a micro-mirror by radiation pressure

S. Gigan, H. R. Boehm, M. Paternostro, F. Blaser, G. Langer, J. B. Hertzberg, K. Schwab, D. Baeuerle, M. Aspelmeyer, A. Zeilinger

quant-pharXiv:quant-ph/0607068

Abstract

We demonstrate passive feedback cooling of a mechanical resonator based on radiation pressure forces and assisted by photothermal forces in a high-finesse optical cavity. The resonator is a free-standing high-reflectance micro-mirror (of mass m=400ng and mechanical quality factor Q=104) that is used as back-mirror in a detuned Fabry-Perot cavity of optical finesse F=500. We observe an increased damping in the dynamics of the mechanical oscillator by a factor of 30 and a corresponding cooling of the oscillator modes below 10 K starting from room temperature. This effect is an important ingredient for recently proposed schemes to prepare quantum entanglement of macroscopic mechanical oscillators.

Create a lesson