Abstract
Electromagnetic fields carry momentum, which upon reflection on matter gives rise to the radiation pressure of photons. The radiation pressure has recently been utilized in cavity optomechanics for controlling mechanical motions of macroscopic objects at the quantum limit. However, because of the weakness of the interaction, attempts so far had to use a strong coherent drive to reach the quantum limit. Therefore, the single-photon quantum regime, where even the presence of a totally off-resonant single photon alters the quantum state of the mechanical mode significantly, is one of the next milestones in cavity optomechanics. Here we demonstrate an artificial realization of the radiation pressure of microwave photons acting on phonons in a surface acoustic wave resonator. The order-of-magnitude enhancement of the interaction strength originates in the well-tailored, strong, second-order nonlinearity of a superconducting Josephson junction circuit. The synthetic radiation pressure interaction adds a key element to the quantum optomechanical toolbox and can be applied to quantum information interfaces between electromagnetic and mechanical degrees of freedom.
Highlights
Electromagnetic fields carry momentum, which upon reflection on matter gives rise to the radiation pressure of photons
The single-photon quantum regime is reached when the radiation pressure of a single photon is strong enough to overcome other dissipations in the system[2], where the quantum state of the mechanical mode is coherently controlled by the quantum of the electromagnetic field
We introduce an artificial optomechanical system consisting of a surface acoustic wave (SAW) resonator and a superconducting circuit
Summary
Electromagnetic fields carry momentum, which upon reflection on matter gives rise to the radiation pressure of photons. Even though the interaction is rather weak at the single-photon level, one can apply a strong drive field to enhance the effective coupling strength to reach the quantum regime[3,4,5,6,7,8]. The terms with coefficients α0 and β represent the nonlinearities of the resonator corresponding to the self-Kerr and Pockels effects, respectively (see the details in Supplementary Note 2).
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