(DARPA) Optical Radiation Cooling and Heating In Integrated Devices: Circuit cavity optomechanics for cooling and amplification on a silicon chip

Abstract

Abstract : In this DARPA's ORCHID program, Yale/Columbia's team focuses on chip-scale optomechanics with emphasis on circuit integration on silicon platforms. In Phase I (06/2010-06/2012), we advanced the-state-of-art cavity optomechanical devices with performance parameters exceeding DARPA's specifications. Selected high performance devices are optimized for specific applications: (1) low-noise optomechanical oscillators; (2) femtogram optomechanical cavities for sensing; (3) strong optomechanical backaction and coherent control for quantum transducers. In Phase II (07/2012-06/2015), we added electronic control in Cavity Optomechanics and developed a number of cavity electro-optomechanical systems for realizing strong coupling between photon, phonon and microwave fields. These cavity electro-optomechanical systems were fabricated three different material systems -- Si, SiN and AlN. The latter two substrate systems were first designed by our team and now become very popular in Optomechanics community. Particular to the silicon platform, we developed a post-CMOS process which allowed the interrogation of Optomechanics on a CMOS platform with integrated Germanium detectors. The most notable accomplishments we have made in Phase II include: (1) The development of AlN-on-silicon platform for cavity electro-optomechanics and nonlinear optics; (2) Development of X-band optomechanical oscillators; (3) Discovery of phonon radiation pressure in optomechanical resonators; (4) Demonstration of coherent control of cavity electro-mechanical resonators; (5) Non-volatile optomechanical switches and memory; (6) Photonic synchronization of two coupled resonators. Throughout this program, we published 48 journal papers, gave 80+ invited talks/seminars, and contributed to 40+ conference proceedings. A full list of papers we published in this period can be found in Appendix I.