Optomechanical Quantum Information Processing with Photons and Phonons

Abstract

We describe how strong resonant interactions in multimode optomechanical systems can be used to induce controlled nonlinear couplings between single photons and phonons. Combined with linear mapping schemes between photons and phonons, these techniques provide a universal building block for various classical and quantum information processing applications. Our approach is especially suited for nano-optomechanical devices, where strong optomechanical interactions on a single photon level are within experimental reach.

Cavity-mediated coupling of mechanical oscillators limited by quantum back-action

“…We observe the quantum back-action noise imparted by the optical coupling resulting in correlated mechanical fluctuations of the two oscillators. Our results illustrate challenges and opportunities of coupling quantum objects with light for applications of quantum cavity optomechanics [8][9][10][11][12][13][14] .…”

“…We observe the quantum back-action noise imparted by the optical coupling resulting in correlated mechanical fluctuations of the two oscillators. Our results illustrate challenges and opportunities of coupling quantum objects with light for applications of quantum cavity optomechanics [8][9][10][11][12][13][14] .Cavity optomechanical systems comprised of a single mechanical oscillator interacting with a single electromagnetic cavity mode 15 serve useful quantum-mechanical functions, such as generating squeezed light [16][17][18] , detecting forces with quantum-limited sensitivity 19 or through back-action-evading measurement 20 , and both entangling and amplifying mechanical and optical modes 21 . Systems containing several mechanical elements offer additional capabilities.…”

“…This improved understanding might help to overcome or exploit the effects of quantum back-action in complex multi-element quantum systems 14,34 .…”

Reservoir engineering and dynamical phase transitions in optomechanical arrays

“…Over the past years, this coupling has been successfully employed to cool mechanical systems close to the quantum ground state [19][20][21][22][23], using techniques analogous to laser cooling of atoms. In parallel, rapid progress in the fabrication and control of OMS, and in particular new designs for microscale and nanoscale devices [20,21,24,25], have led to a drastic improvement of OMS and pave the way for realizing various strongly coupled [26][27][28] and multimode [29][30][31][32][33][34][35] scenarios. Here, we describe the appearance of dissipation processes in extended OM arrays, where in contrast to OM laser cooling, now the mechanical systems provide a decoherence channel for light.…”

Optophononics with coupled quantum dots

“…Phonons are recently beginning to enter this realm of mutual control of individual quantum states as mediators of the coupling of QDs to photonic cavity modes 24,25 . Already much gainful use of phonons is being made on a different scale, namely, in optomechanics 26,27 . Therein, the phonons' attraction stems from the complementary nature of photons and phonons with regard to quantum information, with photons as broad band long-distance information carriers and phonons as long-time information storage.…”