Real-space tailoring of the electron–phonon coupling in ultraclean nanotube mechanical resonators

Abstract

The coupling between electrons and phonons is at the heart of many fundamental phenomena in physics. In nature, this coupling is generally predetermined for both, molecules and solids. Tremendous advances have been made in controlling electrons and phonons in engineered nanosystems, yet, control over the coupling between these degrees of freedom is still widely lacking. Here, we use a new generation of carbon nanotube devices with movable ultra-clean single and double quantum dots embedded in a mechanical resonator to demonstrate the tailoring of the interactions between electronic and mechanical degrees of freedom on the nanoscale. Exploiting this tunable coupling, we directly image the spatial structure of phonon modes and probe their parity in real space. Most interestingly, we demonstrate selective coupling between individual mechanical modes and internal electronic degrees of freedom. Our results open new vistas for engineering bulk quantum phenomena in a controlled nanoscale setting and offer important new tools for entangling the electronic and mechanical degrees of freedom at the quantum level.