Abstract
Despite recent progress in nano-optomechanics, active control of optical fields at the nanoscale has not been achieved with an on-chip nano-electromechanical system (NEMS) thus far. Here we present a new type of hybrid system, consisting of an on-chip graphene NEMS suspended a few tens of nanometres above nitrogen-vacancy centres (NVCs), which are stable single-photon emitters embedded in nanodiamonds. Electromechanical control of the photons emitted by the NVC is provided by electrostatic tuning of the graphene NEMS position, which is transduced to a modulation of NVC emission intensity. The optomechanical coupling between the graphene displacement and the NVC emission is based on near-field dipole–dipole interaction. This class of optomechanical coupling increases strongly for smaller distances, making it suitable for nanoscale devices. These achievements hold promise for selective control of emitter arrays on-chip, optical spectroscopy of individual nano-objects, integrated optomechanical information processing and open new avenues towards quantum optomechanics.
Highlights
Despite recent progress in nano-optomechanics, active control of optical fields at the nanoscale has not been achieved with an on-chip nano-electromechanical system (NEMS) far
The transduction between nanomotion and an optical field is due to a strong modification of an emitter’s relaxation rate and light emission when graphene is placed in its near field[14,19,20,21,22,23,24], at nanometre-scale distances
Owing to its electromechanical properties, graphene NEMS can be actuated and deflected electrostatically over few tens of nanometres with modest voltages applied to a gate electrode[17,28,29,30,31]
Summary
Despite recent progress in nano-optomechanics, active control of optical fields at the nanoscale has not been achieved with an on-chip nano-electromechanical system (NEMS) far. The optomechanical coupling between the graphene displacement and the NVC emission is based on near-field dipole–dipole interaction This class of optomechanical coupling increases strongly for smaller distances, making it suitable for nanoscale devices. The coupling strength increases strongly for shorter distances and is enhanced because of graphene’s two-dimensional (2D) character and linear dispersion As such, this near-field hybrid optomechanical coupling mechanism between graphene and a point dipole is intrinsically nanoscale in comparison with the evanescent coupling involving micron-scale cavities and waveguides in previous lines of work[4,25,26,27]. We use the dipole–graphene coupling to control the nitrogen-vacancy centre (NVC) emission by the graphene displacement The enhanced dipolar coupling strength and stronger distance dependence (d À 4 compared with d À 3 for bulk materials20) makes the near-field dipolar interaction a more effective and divergent coupling mechanism between a graphene NEMS and a fluorescent emitter
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