arXiv · quant-ph/0607068
Self-cooling of a micro-mirror by radiation pressure
Abstract
We demonstrate passive feedback cooling of a mechanical resonator based on radiation pressure forces and assisted by photothermal forces in a high-finesse optical cavity. The resonator is a free-standing high-reflectance micro-mirror (of mass m=400ng and mechanical quality factor Q=10^4) that is used as back-mirror in a detuned Fabry-Perot cavity of optical finesse F=500. We observe an increased damping in the dynamics of the mechanical oscillator by a factor of 30 and a corresponding cooling of the oscillator modes below 10 K starting from room temperature. This effect is an important ingredient for recently proposed schemes to prepare quantum entanglement of macroscopic mechanical oscillators.
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S. Gigan, H. R. Boehm, M. Paternostro, F. Blaser, G. Langer, J. B. Hertzberg, K. Schwab, D. Baeuerle, M. Aspelmeyer, A. Zeilinger. 2006-11-08. Self-cooling of a micro-mirror by radiation pressure. https://doi.org/10.1038/nature05273
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