Efficient Conversion of Optical to Mechanical States Close to the Single-Quantum Level
Abstract
Coherent interfaces between optical photons and mechanical excitations provide a promising route towards phonon-state engineering and hybrid quantum information processing. Cavity optomechanical systems enable such interfaces via optomechanically induced transparency (OMIT), allowing coherent mapping between traveling optical fields and localized mechanical modes. However, previous implementations of OMIT conversion protocols were limited to classical input signals with large coherent state photon numbers due to room temperature operation and corresponding thermal mechanical noise. Here, we demonstrate efficient low-noise photon-phonon state transfer close to the single-quantum regime in an optomechanical crystal operated at Millikelvin temperatures. Using weak coherent optical input pulses at the few-photon level, we achieve a record-level photon-phonon conversion efficiency of η=0.76, a mechanical storage lifetime of T1=7.3 μs, and a tunable conversion bandwidth exceeding 4.5 MHz. Hanbury Brown-Twiss measurements of the retrieved signal demonstrate the coherent nature of the converted phononic state, evidencing low added thermal noise in the conversion process (nth=9.0). These results establish optomechanical crystals as efficient optical interfaces to GHz mechanical modes and provide a pathway toward deterministic single-quantum-level mechanical state preparation.
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BibTeX
@misc{korsch2026efficient,
title = {{Efficient Conversion of Optical to Mechanical States Close to the Single-Quantum Level}},
author = {Alexander Rolf Korsch and Liu Chen and Pedro V. Pinho and Boris Müllendorff and Jan N. Kirchhof and Yong Yu and Thiago P. Mayer Alegre and Simon Gröblacher},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2609.04150},
eprint = {2609.04150},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.04150},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Efficient Conversion of Optical to Mechanical States Close to the Single-Quantum Level
AU - Alexander Rolf Korsch
AU - Liu Chen
AU - Pedro V. Pinho
AU - Boris Müllendorff
AU - Jan N. Kirchhof
AU - Yong Yu
AU - Thiago P. Mayer Alegre
AU - Simon Gröblacher
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/03
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2609.04150
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.04150
AB - Coherent interfaces between optical photons and mechanical excitations provide a promising route towards phonon-state engineering and hybrid quantum information processing. Cavity optomechanical systems enable such interfaces via optomechanically induced transparency (OMIT), allowing coherent mapping between traveling optical fields and localized mechanical modes. However, previous implementations of OMIT conversion protocols were limited to classical input signals with large coherent state photon numbers due to room temperature operation and corresponding thermal mechanical noise. Here, we demonstrate efficient low-noise photon-phonon state transfer close to the single-quantum regime in an optomechanical crystal operated at Millikelvin temperatures. Using weak coherent optical input pulses at the few-photon level, we achieve a record-level photon-phonon conversion efficiency of η=0.76, a mechanical storage lifetime of T_1=7.3 μs, and a tunable conversion bandwidth exceeding 4.5 MHz. Hanbury Brown-Twiss measurements of the retrieved signal demonstrate the coherent nature of the converted phononic state, evidencing low added thermal noise in the conversion process (n_th=9.0). These results establish optomechanical crystals as efficient optical interfaces to GHz mechanical modes and provide a pathway toward deterministic single-quantum-level mechanical state preparation.
ER -