Optical detection of radio waves through a nanomechanical transducer

Published

March 5, 2014

Author(s)

Jacob M. Taylor, Tolga Bagci, A Simonsen, Silvan Schmid, L Villanueva, Emil Zeuthen, Anders Sorensen, Koji Usami, A Schliesser, E.S. Polzik

Abstract

Low-loss transmission and sensitive recovery of weak radio-frequency (rf) and mi- crowave signals is an ubiquitous technological challenge, crucial in fields as diverse as radio astronomy, medical imaging, navigation and communication, including those of quantum states. Efficient upconversion of rf-signals to an optical carrier would al- low transmitting them via optical fibers instead of copper wires dramatically reducing losses, and give access to the mature toolbox of quantum optical techniques, routinely enabling quantum-limited signal detection. Research in the field of cavity optomechan- ics [1, 2] has shown that nanomechanical oscillators can couple very strongly to either microwave [3–5] or optical fields [6, 7]. An oscillator accommodating both these func- tionalities would bear great promise as the intermediate platform in a radio-to-optical transduction cascade. Here, we demonstrate such an opto-electro-mechanical trans- ducer following a recent proposal [8] utilizing a high-Q nanomembrane. A moderate voltage bias (Vdc

Citation

Nature

Pub Type

Journals

Download Paper

https://doi.org/10.1038/nature13029

Keywords

optomechanics, electromechanics, hybrid quantum systems, graphene, silicon-nitride, nanomechanics

Citation

Taylor, J. , Bagci, T. , Simonsen, A. , Schmid, S. , Villanueva, L. , Zeuthen, E. , Sorensen, A. , Usami, K. , Schliesser, A. and Polzik, E. (2014), Optical detection of radio waves through a nanomechanical transducer, Nature, [online], https://doi.org/10.1038/nature13029 (Accessed October 17, 2025)