Cooling of mechanical resonators is currently a popular topic in many fields of physics including ultra-high precision measurements, detection of gravitational waves and the study of the transition between classical and quantum behaviour of a mechanical system. Here we report the observation of self-cooling of a micromirror by radiation pressure inside a high-finesse optical cavity. In essence, changes in intensity in a detuned cavity, as caused by the thermal vibration of the mirror, provide the mechanism for entropy flow from the mirror's oscillatory motion to the low-entropy cavity field. The crucial coupling between radiation and mechanical motion was made possible by producing free-standing micromirrors of low mass (m approximately 400 ng), high reflectance (more than 99.6%) and high mechanical quality (Q approximately 10,000). We observe cooling of the mechanical oscillator by a factor of more than 30; that is, from room temperature to below 10 K. In addition to purely photothermal effects we identify radiation pressure as a relevant mechanism responsible for the cooling. In contrast with earlier experiments, our technique does not need any active feedback. We expect that improvements of our method will permit cooling ratios beyond 1,000 and will thus possibly enable cooling all the way down to the quantum mechanical ground state of the micromirror.

We identify the most important parameters for the growth of ordered SiGe islands on pit-patterned Si(001) substrates. From a multi-dimensional parameter space we link individual contributions to isolate their influence on ordered island growth. This includes the influences of: the pit size, pit depth and pit period on the Si buffer layer and subsequent Ge growth; the pit sidewall inclination on Ge island growth; the amount of Ge on island morphologies as well as the influences of the pit-size homogeneity, the pit period, the Ge growth temperature and rate on island formation. We highlight that the initial pit shape and pit size in combination with the growth conditions of the Si buffer layer should be adjusted to provide suitable preconditions for the growth of Ge islands with the desired size, composition and nucleation position. Furthermore, we demonstrate that the wetting layer between pits can play the role of a stabilizer that inhibits shape transformations of ordered islands. Thus, dislocation formation within islands can be delayed, uniform arrays of one island type can be fabricated and secondary island nucleation between pits can be impeded. These findings allow us to fabricate perfectly ordered and homogeneous Ge islands on one and the same sample, even if the pit period is varied from a few hundred nanometres to several micrometres.

Thermal conductivity of nickel and gold films on quartz (thickness 0.4–8 μm) was measured by a modulated thermoreflectance technique recording the surface temperature profile. Model calculations predict an optimum frequency for measuring thermal transport within the film. Measurements on films with various thicknesses reveal a thermal conductivity close to the bulk value for nickel while gold films exhibit a reduced conductivity with decreasing film thickness.

We investigate the optical properties of ordered Ge quantum dots (QDs) by means of micro-photoluminescence spectroscopy (PL). These were grown on pit-patterned Si(001) substrates with a wide range of pit-periods and thus inter QD-distances (425-3400 nm). By exploiting almost arbitrary inter-QD distances achievable in this way we are able to choose the number of QDs that contribute to the PL emission in a range between 70 and less than three QDs. This well-defined system allows us to clarify, by PL-investigation, several points which are important for the understanding of the formation and optical properties of ordered QDs. We directly trace and quantify the amount of Ge transferred from the surrounding wetting layer (WL) to the QDs in the pits. Moreover, by exploiting different pit-shapes, we reveal the role of strain-induced activation energy barriers that have to be overcome for charge carriers generated outside the dots. These need to diffuse between the energy minimum of the WL in and between the pits, and the one in the QDs. In addition, we demonstrate that the WL in the pits is already severely intermixed with Si before upright QDs nucleate, which further enhances intermixing of ordered QDs as compared to QDs grown on planar substrates. Furthermore, we quantitatively determine the amount of Ge transferred by surface diffusion through the border region between planar and patterned substrate. This is important for the growth of ordered islands on patterned fields of finite size. We highlight that the Ge WL-facets in the pits act as PL emission centres, similar to upright QDs.

We report on simultaneous frequency domain optical-resolution photoacoustic and fluorescence microscopy with sub-µm lateral resolution. With the help of a blood smear, we show that photoacoustic and fluorescence images provide complementary information. Furthermore, we compare theoretically predicted signal-to-noise ratios of sinusoidal modulation in frequency domain with pulsed excitation in time domain.