New platform developed to measure and exploit optomechanical interactions
(Phys.org)—Researchers from the NIST Center for Nanoscale Science and Technology and Caltech have developed a new design platform for measuring and exploiting strong interactions between light confined in a nanoscale structure and an adjacent nanomechanical system. The versatile platform opens new approaches for fabricating sensitive light detectors and for converting wavelengths for use in quantum information science. Previously, the Caltech team used silicon "optomechanical crystals" in which radiation pressure from light drove mechanical vibrations within a single, doubly-clamped silicon nanobeam. In the new work, the CNST-Caltech collaborators developed a design for observing similar effects in silicon nitride, which has a much broader optical transparency window than silicon, but for which radiation pressure interactions within a single nanobeam are expected to be much weaker.