TY - JOUR
T1 - Optical backaction-evading measurement of a mechanical oscillator
AU - Shomroni, Itay
AU - Qiu, Liu
AU - Malz, Daniel
AU - Nunnenkamp, Andreas
AU - Kippenberg, Tobias J.
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2019, The Author(s).
PY - 2019/12/1
Y1 - 2019/12/1
N2 - Quantum mechanics imposes a limit on the precision of a continuous position measurement of a harmonic oscillator, due to backaction arising from quantum fluctuations in the measurement field. This standard quantum limit can be surpassed by monitoring only one of the two non-commuting quadratures of the motion, known as backaction-evading measurement. This technique has not been implemented using optical interferometers to date. Here we demonstrate, in a cavity optomechanical system operating in the optical domain, a continuous two-tone backaction-evading measurement of a localized gigahertz-frequency mechanical mode of a photonic-crystal nanobeam cryogenically and optomechanically cooled close to the ground state. Employing quantum-limited optical heterodyne detection, we explicitly show the transition from conventional to backaction-evading measurement. We observe up to 0.67 dB (14%) reduction of total measurement noise, thereby demonstrating the viability of backaction-evading measurements in nanomechanical resonators for optical ultrasensitive measurements of motion and force.
AB - Quantum mechanics imposes a limit on the precision of a continuous position measurement of a harmonic oscillator, due to backaction arising from quantum fluctuations in the measurement field. This standard quantum limit can be surpassed by monitoring only one of the two non-commuting quadratures of the motion, known as backaction-evading measurement. This technique has not been implemented using optical interferometers to date. Here we demonstrate, in a cavity optomechanical system operating in the optical domain, a continuous two-tone backaction-evading measurement of a localized gigahertz-frequency mechanical mode of a photonic-crystal nanobeam cryogenically and optomechanically cooled close to the ground state. Employing quantum-limited optical heterodyne detection, we explicitly show the transition from conventional to backaction-evading measurement. We observe up to 0.67 dB (14%) reduction of total measurement noise, thereby demonstrating the viability of backaction-evading measurements in nanomechanical resonators for optical ultrasensitive measurements of motion and force.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85065331670&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1038/s41467-019-10024-3
DO - 10.1038/s41467-019-10024-3
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C2 - 31064984
AN - SCOPUS:85065331670
SN - 2041-1723
VL - 10
JO - Nature Communications
JF - Nature Communications
IS - 1
M1 - 2086
ER -