{"id":62408,"date":"2025-08-11T21:47:13","date_gmt":"2025-08-11T21:47:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/62408\/"},"modified":"2025-08-11T21:47:13","modified_gmt":"2025-08-11T21:47:13","slug":"optomechanical-control-of-long-lived-bulk-acoustic-phonons-in-the-quantum-regime","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/62408\/","title":{"rendered":"Optomechanical control of long-lived bulk acoustic phonons in the quantum regime"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The cavity optomechanical system<\/p>\n<p>In what follows, we build our cavity optomechanical system around the \u03bcHBAR seen in Fig. <a data-track=\"click\" data-track-label=\"link\" data-track-action=\"figure anchor\" href=\"http:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s41567-025-02989-4#Fig1\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">1a<\/a>. The \u03bcHBAR is an FP resonator for bulk acoustic phonons, supporting a series of high-Q-factor Gaussian modes. The \u03bcHBAR is created by shaping the surfaces of a 500-\u03bcm-thick z-cut \u03b1 quartz substrate into a plano-convex geometry using a reflow-based fabrication process<a data-track=\"click\" data-track-action=\"reference anchor\" data-track-label=\"link\" data-test=\"citation-ref\" aria-label=\"Reference 33\" title=\"Kharel, P. et al. Ultra-high-Q phononic resonators on-chip at cryogenic temperatures. APL Photonics 3, 066101 (2018).\" href=\"http:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s41567-025-02989-4#ref-CR33\" id=\"ref-link-section-d35453137e690\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">33<\/a>. The \u03bcHBAR has a 100-mm radius of curvature and cavity length of 500\u2009\u03bcm, forming a stable Gaussian-beam resonator for longitudinal bulk acoustic phonons. This design produces fundamental longitudinal acoustic modes with a waist radius of 31\u2009\u03bcm at 12-GHz frequencies, corresponding to a motional mass of 7.5\u2009\u03bcg (refs. <a data-track=\"click\" data-track-action=\"reference anchor\" data-track-label=\"link\" data-test=\"citation-ref\" aria-label=\"Reference 33\" title=\"Kharel, P. et al. Ultra-high-Q phononic resonators on-chip at cryogenic temperatures. APL Photonics 3, 066101 (2018).\" href=\"http:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s41567-025-02989-4#ref-CR33\" id=\"ref-link-section-d35453137e694\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">33<\/a>,<a data-track=\"click\" data-track-action=\"reference anchor\" data-track-label=\"link\" data-test=\"citation-ref\" aria-label=\"Reference 44\" title=\"Doeleman, H. M. et al. Brillouin optomechanics in the quantum ground state. Phys. Rev. Res. 5, 043140 (2023).\" href=\"http:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s41567-025-02989-4#ref-CR44\" id=\"ref-link-section-d35453137e697\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">44<\/a>). At 1,550-nm wavelengths, mode matching with a Gaussian laser beam permits mode-selective coupling to phonon modes near the Brillouin frequency (12.65\u2009GHz), as dictated by the phase-matching condition for acousto-optic Bragg scattering<a data-track=\"click\" data-track-action=\"reference anchor\" data-track-label=\"link\" data-test=\"citation-ref\" aria-label=\"Reference 42\" title=\"Renninger, W., Kharel, P., Behunin, R. &amp; Rakich, P. Bulk crystalline optomechanics. Nat. Phys. 14, 601&#x2013;607 (2018).\" href=\"http:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s41567-025-02989-4#ref-CR42\" id=\"ref-link-section-d35453137e702\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">42<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Fig. 1: Brillouin-based optomechanical system.<a class=\"c-article-section__figure-link\" data-test=\"img-link\" data-track=\"click\" data-track-label=\"image\" data-track-action=\"view figure\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s41567-025-02989-4\/figures\/1\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"Fig1\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/41567_2025_2989_Fig1_HTML.png\" alt=\"figure 1\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"685\" height=\"386\"\/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>a, Schematic of a \u03bcHBAR. b, Optically driven acoustic response of the \u03bcHBAR, showing acoustic resonances with a 6.04-MHz FSR. c, High-resolution measurement of the driven acoustic response, showing Hermite\u2013Gaussian modes (L0, L1, L2) with 140\u2009kHz transverse mode spacing. d, Driven response of the fundamental (L0) acoustic mode showing a linewidth of \u03930\/2\u03c0\u2009=\u2009590\u2009Hz at 7\u2009K. e, Schematic of the cavity optomechanical system; the \u03bcHBAR was positioned within an optical FP optimized for acousto-optic mode matching and cooled to 13.6\u2009K. Light in the upper apparatus arm was frequency shifted by an acousto-optic-modulator (AOM), creating an LO for heterodyne detection. Light in the lower arm was modulated by an electro-optic modulator (EOM), generating a probe tone for OMIT\/OMIA measurements. The transmitted light was mixed with the LO and detected by a high-speed photo detector (PD); detected signals were analysed with a vector network analyser (VNA) during OMIT\/OMIA measurements (switch closed) and a radio frequency spectrum analyser (RFSA) during spontaneous measurements (switch open). Inset: phase-matched optomechanical coupling achieved when two adjacent optical modes had a frequency separation matching the phonon frequency and the spatial periodicity of their interference (red) matched that of the phonon mode (green). f\u2013i, Phase matching and spectral filtering used to realize single-mode coupling. Within the optical FP spectrum (f), two modes separated by the Brillouin frequency (\u03a9B) enable resonantly enhanced optomechanical scattering. g, A uniform phonon-mode spacing of the fundamental \u03bcHBAR modes. h, Modulation of the optomechanical single-photon coupling rate (go) produced by phase matching near the Brillouin frequency. i, The single-mode OMIT spectrum resulting from phase matching and filtering in this system. j\u2013l, OMIT traces for different \u03bcHBAR alignments within the FP, from misaligned (j) to partially misaligned (k) and optimally aligned (l); optimal alignment (l) yielded single-mode (L0) coupling with &gt;20-dB suppression of higher-order (L1, L2 and so on) modes. m, Broad OMIT scan at optimal alignment (l), showing selective coupling to the fundamental acoustic mode, while suppressing adjacent modes at \u0394\u03bd\u2009=\u2009\u00b16\u2009MHz (Supplementary Information Section <a data-track=\"click\" data-track-label=\"link\" data-track-action=\"supplementary material anchor\" href=\"http:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s41567-025-02989-4#MOESM1\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">VIII<\/a>). norm., normalized.<\/p>\n<p><a data-track=\"click\" data-track-label=\"link\" data-track-action=\"supplementary material anchor\" href=\"http:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s41567-025-02989-4#MOESM2\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Source data<\/a><\/p>\n<p>The \u03bcHBAR\u2019s phonon-mode spectrum was independently measured at cryogenic temperatures using non-invasive laser-based Brillouin spectroscopy of the type described in ref. <a data-track=\"click\" data-track-action=\"reference anchor\" data-track-label=\"link\" data-test=\"citation-ref\" aria-label=\"Reference 48\" title=\"Luo, Y. et al. Lifetime-limited gigahertz-frequency mechanical oscillators with millisecond coherence times. Preprint at &#010;                https:\/\/arxiv.org\/abs\/2504.07523&#010;                &#010;               (2025).\" href=\"http:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s41567-025-02989-4#ref-CR48\" id=\"ref-link-section-d35453137e811\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">48<\/a>. As seen from the measured phonon-mode spectra (Fig. <a data-track=\"click\" data-track-label=\"link\" data-track-action=\"figure anchor\" href=\"http:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s41567-025-02989-4#Fig1\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">1b\u2013c<\/a>), this resonator supports families of longitudinal modes, with an FSR of 6.04\u2009MHz and a transverse mode spacing of 140\u2009kHz. Measurements of the fundamental phonon mode at T\u2009=\u20097\u2009K (Fig. <a data-track=\"click\" data-track-label=\"link\" data-track-action=\"figure anchor\" href=\"http:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s41567-025-02989-4#Fig1\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">1d<\/a>) reveal a phonon Q-factor of 21 million (590\u2009Hz linewidth) at 12.66\u2009GHz, corresponding to an f\u2013Q product of 2.7\u2009\u00d7\u20091017\u2009Hz, a key figure of merit that characterizes decoupling of a resonator from its thermal environment<a data-track=\"click\" data-track-action=\"reference anchor\" data-track-label=\"link\" data-test=\"citation-ref\" aria-label=\"Reference 1\" title=\"Aspelmeyer, M., Kippenberg, T. J. &amp; Marquardt, F. Cavity optomechanics. Rev. Mod. Phys. 86, 1391&#x2013;1452 (2014).\" href=\"http:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s41567-025-02989-4#ref-CR1\" id=\"ref-link-section-d35453137e833\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">1<\/a>. Similar \u03bcHBAR resonators have yielded record f\u2013Q products of 3.13\u2009\u00d7\u20091018\u2009Hz, corresponding to 6.2-ms coherence times<a data-track=\"click\" data-track-action=\"reference anchor\" data-track-label=\"link\" data-test=\"citation-ref\" aria-label=\"Reference 48\" title=\"Luo, Y. et al. Lifetime-limited gigahertz-frequency mechanical oscillators with millisecond coherence times. Preprint at &#010;                https:\/\/arxiv.org\/abs\/2504.07523&#010;                &#010;               (2025).\" href=\"http:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s41567-025-02989-4#ref-CR48\" id=\"ref-link-section-d35453137e842\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">48<\/a>. Hence, with optomechanical control, such long-lived phonons could become a compelling quantum resource. However, conventional cavity optomechanical techniques based on sideband-resolved coupling become impractical due to the high frequencies of the Brillouin-active phonon mode (~12\u2009GHz) and relatively small zero-point coupling rates (g0\/2\u03c0\u2009&lt;\u200920\u2009Hz) produced by photo-elastic coupling to these massive phonon modes.<\/p>\n<p>To address this challenge, we used resonant enhancement of the Brillouin interaction to dramatically boost the optomechanical coupling rates<a data-track=\"click\" data-track-action=\"reference anchor\" data-track-label=\"link\" data-test=\"citation-ref\" aria-label=\"Reference 43\" title=\"Kharel, P. et al. High-frequency cavity optomechanics using bulk acoustic phonons. Sci. Adv. 5, eaav0582 (2019).\" href=\"http:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s41567-025-02989-4#ref-CR43\" id=\"ref-link-section-d35453137e854\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">43<\/a>. The \u03bcHBAR was placed inside a high-finesse (F\u2009\u2248\u20093,000) plano-concave optical FP resonator (Fig. <a data-track=\"click\" data-track-label=\"link\" data-track-action=\"figure anchor\" href=\"http:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s41567-025-02989-4#Fig1\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">1e<\/a>) with a mode spacing (\u0394\u03c9\u2009=\u2009\u03c92\u2009\u2212\u2009\u03c91) that matched the frequency of the Brillouin-active phonon mode (\u03a9n) falling within the Brillouin phase-matching bandwidth. This permits the incident pump photons to be scattered between the optical cavity modes by the Brillouin-active phonon mode through resonant intermodal scattering (Fig. <a data-track=\"click\" data-track-label=\"link\" data-track-action=\"figure anchor\" href=\"http:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s41567-025-02989-4#Fig1\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">1f\u2013i<\/a>). When pumping either optical mode, resonant enhancement of the intracavity photon number (nc) dramatically increases the optomechanical coupling rate (\\(g={g}_{0}\\sqrt{{n}_{\\rm{c}}}\\)) to the macroscopic \u03bcHBAR resonator phonon modes<a data-track=\"click\" data-track-action=\"reference anchor\" data-track-label=\"link\" data-test=\"citation-ref\" aria-label=\"Reference 43\" title=\"Kharel, P. et al. High-frequency cavity optomechanics using bulk acoustic phonons. Sci. Adv. 5, eaav0582 (2019).\" href=\"http:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s41567-025-02989-4#ref-CR43\" id=\"ref-link-section-d35453137e945\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">43<\/a>. We show that such resonantly enhanced coupling schemes enable cooperativity of C\u2009&gt;\u20091 at microwatt power levels and efficient quantum control of these massive, high-Q-factor phonon modes.<\/p>\n<p>The mode spectrum of the optical FP resonator was designed to create a substantial sideband asymmetry, as needed for quantum control of the \u03bcHBAR phonon modes. Weak intracavity reflections created by the quartz \u03bcHBAR surfaces result in non-uniform optical mode spacing<a data-track=\"click\" data-track-action=\"reference anchor\" data-track-label=\"link\" data-test=\"citation-ref\" aria-label=\"Reference 43\" title=\"Kharel, P. et al. High-frequency cavity optomechanics using bulk acoustic phonons. Sci. Adv. 5, eaav0582 (2019).\" href=\"http:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s41567-025-02989-4#ref-CR43\" id=\"ref-link-section-d35453137e958\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">43<\/a>. This non-uniform mode spacing was used to shape the spectrum and control scattering processes<a data-track=\"click\" data-track-action=\"reference anchor\" data-track-label=\"link\" data-test=\"citation-ref\" aria-label=\"Reference 43\" title=\"Kharel, P. et al. High-frequency cavity optomechanics using bulk acoustic phonons. Sci. Adv. 5, eaav0582 (2019).\" href=\"http:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s41567-025-02989-4#ref-CR43\" id=\"ref-link-section-d35453137e962\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">43<\/a>. By selecting two optical modes (\u03c91, \u03c92) within this non-uniform spectrum that satisfy the condition for resonant scattering (\u03c92\u2009\u2212\u2009\u03c91\u2009\u2248\u2009\u03a9B), with spacings between adjacent mode pairs that are detuned from resonance, we inhibited unwanted scattering processes<a data-track=\"click\" data-track-action=\"reference anchor\" data-track-label=\"link\" data-test=\"citation-ref\" aria-label=\"Reference 43\" title=\"Kharel, P. et al. High-frequency cavity optomechanics using bulk acoustic phonons. Sci. Adv. 5, eaav0582 (2019).\" href=\"http:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s41567-025-02989-4#ref-CR43\" id=\"ref-link-section-d35453137e987\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">43<\/a>. This symmetry breaking resulted in a large (&gt;1,000-fold) difference between the Stokes and antiStokes (AS) scattering rates, allowing us to virtually eliminate the Stokes or AS interaction by resonantly exciting an appropriately chosen optical mode (Supplementary Information Section <a data-track=\"click\" data-track-label=\"link\" data-track-action=\"supplementary material anchor\" href=\"http:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s41567-025-02989-4#MOESM1\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">III<\/a>). However, even when these conditions are satisfied, numerous \u03bcHBAR phonon modes can mediate scattering between these optical cavity modes. As seen in Fig. <a data-track=\"click\" data-track-label=\"link\" data-track-action=\"figure anchor\" href=\"http:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s41567-025-02989-4#Fig1\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">1h<\/a>, Brillouin scattering permits coupling to multiple longitudinal mode families (\u03a9n\u22121, \u03a9n, \u03a9n+1) within the Brillouin phase-matching bandwidth (dashed line), centred around the Brillouin frequency (\u03a9B). Hence, control of an individual phonon mode requires new strategies to suppress scattering to unwanted phonon modes.<\/p>\n<p>Selective coupling to a single-phonon mode was achieved using phase matching in conjunction with mode matching and spectral filtering within the cavity optomechanical system. By designing the optical cavity to have a linewidth (\u03ba\/2\u03c0\u2009\u2248\u20094\u2009MHz) smaller than the acoustic FSR (~6\u2009MHz), we used the spectral filtering from the optical cavity to effectively restrict the coupling to an individual mode family. However, the use of this triply resonant coupling scheme necessitated matching of the cavity mode spacing (\u03c92\u2009\u2212\u2009\u03c91) to the frequency of the Brillouin-active phonon mode (\u03a9n) with very high precision (&lt;1\u2009MHz). The optical cavity mode spacing was adjusted to match the frequency of the fundamental Gaussian mode of interest using piezo-actuation of the cavity length (see Supplementary Information Sections <a data-track=\"click\" data-track-label=\"link\" data-track-action=\"supplementary material anchor\" href=\"http:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s41567-025-02989-4#MOESM1\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">I A<\/a> and <a data-track=\"click\" data-track-label=\"link\" data-track-action=\"supplementary material anchor\" href=\"http:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s41567-025-02989-4#MOESM1\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">III<\/a> for details). When the resonance condition (\u03c92\u2009\u2212\u2009\u03c91\u2009=\u2009\u03a9n) was met, this system yielded an optomechanically induced transparency (OMIT) spectrum of the type sketched in Fig. <a data-track=\"click\" data-track-label=\"link\" data-track-action=\"figure anchor\" href=\"http:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s41567-025-02989-4#Fig1\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">1i<\/a> (refs. <a data-track=\"click\" data-track-action=\"reference anchor\" data-track-label=\"link\" data-test=\"citation-ref\" aria-label=\"Reference 1\" title=\"Aspelmeyer, M., Kippenberg, T. J. &amp; Marquardt, F. Cavity optomechanics. Rev. Mod. Phys. 86, 1391&#x2013;1452 (2014).\" href=\"http:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s41567-025-02989-4#ref-CR1\" id=\"ref-link-section-d35453137e1069\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">1<\/a>,<a data-track=\"click\" data-track-action=\"reference anchor\" data-track-label=\"link\" data-test=\"citation-ref\" aria-label=\"Reference 43\" title=\"Kharel, P. et al. High-frequency cavity optomechanics using bulk acoustic phonons. Sci. Adv. 5, eaav0582 (2019).\" href=\"http:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s41567-025-02989-4#ref-CR43\" id=\"ref-link-section-d35453137e1072\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">43<\/a>).<\/p>\n<p>The experimental OMIT spectra of Fig. <a data-track=\"click\" data-track-label=\"link\" data-track-action=\"figure anchor\" href=\"http:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s41567-025-02989-4#Fig1\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">1j\u2013m<\/a> were obtained by resonantly pumping the red mode (\u03c91) with the control laser while a probe tone, generated by intensity modulation of the control laser, was swept through the blue cavity mode (\u03c92) to perform a transmission measurement. Pound\u2013Drever\u2013Hall locking was used to precisely align the control laser frequency to the red mode while the transmitted probe light was measured using heterodyne detection using the apparatus of Fig. <a data-track=\"click\" data-track-label=\"link\" data-track-action=\"figure anchor\" href=\"http:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s41567-025-02989-4#Fig1\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">1e<\/a> (see Supplementary Information Section <a data-track=\"click\" data-track-label=\"link\" data-track-action=\"supplementary material anchor\" href=\"http:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s41567-025-02989-4#MOESM1\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">I B<\/a> for further details). The OMIT spectrum of Fig. <a data-track=\"click\" data-track-label=\"link\" data-track-action=\"figure anchor\" href=\"http:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s41567-025-02989-4#Fig1\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">1m<\/a> shows that spectral filtering by the cavity mode greatly suppressed coupling to other mode families, revealing an individual OMIT dip (or dips) centred at the frequency of the optical resonance. However, high-resolution measurements of the OMIT spectrum reveal coupling to the fundamental (L0) as well as unwanted higher-order spatial modes (L1, L2, L3) within a given mode family (Fig. <a data-track=\"click\" data-track-label=\"link\" data-track-action=\"figure anchor\" href=\"http:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s41567-025-02989-4#Fig1\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">1j<\/a>).<\/p>\n<p>To minimize coupling to higher-order acoustic modes, we precisely matched the optical and acoustic field distributions, allowing mode-selective coupling to the fundamental (L0) Gaussian mode. Using an optical cavity length of 12\u2009mm and a 15-mm mirror radius of curvature, we realized a fundamental optical mode with an intensity waist radius (39\u2009\u03bcm), closely matching that of the \u03bcHBAR acoustic field amplitude (31\u2009\u03bcm), as necessary to selectively couple to the fundamental (L0) Gaussian phonon mode. To precisely align the \u03bcHBAR within the optical FP resonator for optimal coupling, the crystal was mounted on a flexure stage that permitted fine tuning of the \u03bcHBAR position (see Supplementary Information Section <a data-track=\"click\" data-track-label=\"link\" data-track-action=\"supplementary material anchor\" href=\"http:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s41567-025-02989-4#MOESM1\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">II A<\/a> for details). As seen from Fig. <a data-track=\"click\" data-track-label=\"link\" data-track-action=\"figure anchor\" href=\"http:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s41567-025-02989-4#Fig1\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">1k,l<\/a>, precise trimming of the \u03bcHBAR position to optimize the transverse alignment of optical and acoustic modes led to a substantial reduction in coupling to higher-order acoustic modes. In the case of optimal alignment (Fig. <a data-track=\"click\" data-track-label=\"link\" data-track-action=\"figure anchor\" href=\"http:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s41567-025-02989-4#Fig1\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">1l,m<\/a>), efficient coupling to the fundamental Gaussian mode at 12.607\u2009GHz was achieved, with &gt;20\u2009dB of suppression of all other acoustic resonances, enabling single-mode quantum control.<\/p>\n<p>Note that the position of the \u03bcHBAR affects the spectrum of the optical cavity modes during this alignment process. Hence, following the repositioning of the \u03bcHBAR, a pair of optical modes at a slightly different wavelength fulfils the condition for resonant coupling. Because the Brillouin frequency is wavelength dependent, the exact frequency of the phonon modes observed in the OMIT spectra of Fig. <a data-track=\"click\" data-track-label=\"link\" data-track-action=\"figure anchor\" href=\"http:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s41567-025-02989-4#Fig1\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">1j\u2013m<\/a> also varied slightly with each alignment. For this reason, the OMIT spectra are presented as functions of detuning from the fundamental acoustic mode of the relevant mode family (Supplementary Information Section <a data-track=\"click\" data-track-label=\"link\" data-track-action=\"supplementary material anchor\" href=\"http:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s41567-025-02989-4#MOESM1\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">II B<\/a>).<\/p>\n<p>Ground-state cooling of \u03bcHBAR phonons<\/p>\n<p>In what follows, we use this cavity optomechanical system to perform ground-state cooling. We begin by introducing the system Hamiltonian and key quantities to describe the cooling process. In the case of optimized single-mode coupling, the interaction Hamiltonian for our system becomes \\({{\\mathcal{H}}}_{{\\rm{int}}}=-\\hslash {g}_{0}({\\hat{a}}_{1}{\\hat{a}}_{2}^{\\dagger }{\\hat{b}}_{n}+{\\hat{a}}_{1}^{\\dagger }{\\hat{a}}_{2}{\\hat{b}}_{n}^{\\dagger })\\) in the rotating wave approximation<a data-track=\"click\" data-track-action=\"reference anchor\" data-track-label=\"link\" data-test=\"citation-ref\" aria-label=\"Reference 43\" title=\"Kharel, P. et al. High-frequency cavity optomechanics using bulk acoustic phonons. Sci. Adv. 5, eaav0582 (2019).\" href=\"http:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s41567-025-02989-4#ref-CR43\" id=\"ref-link-section-d35453137e1357\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">43<\/a>. Here \u210f is Plank\u2019s constant, \\({\\hat{a}}_{1}\\) (\\({\\hat{a}}_{2}\\)) is the annihilation operator for the red (blue) mode with angular frequency \u03c91 (\u03c92), \\({\\hat{b}}_{n}\\) is the annihilation operator phonon mode with angular frequency \u03a9n and g0 is the single-photon coupling rate for resonant intermodal scattering produced by an individual \u03bcHBAR phonon mode<a data-track=\"click\" data-track-action=\"reference anchor\" data-track-label=\"link\" data-test=\"citation-ref\" aria-label=\"Reference 43\" title=\"Kharel, P. et al. High-frequency cavity optomechanics using bulk acoustic phonons. Sci. Adv. 5, eaav0582 (2019).\" href=\"http:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s41567-025-02989-4#ref-CR43\" id=\"ref-link-section-d35453137e1498\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">43<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Resonant pumping of this system produces the familiar beam splitter and squeezing Hamiltonians. When pumping the red mode, the substitution \\({\\hat{a}}_{1}\\,\\to \\,{\\alpha }_{1}\\) yields a linearized beam-splitter Hamiltonian of the form \\({{\\mathcal{H}}}_{{\\rm{B.S.}}}\\,=\\,-\\hslash \\widetilde{g}({\\hat{a}}_{2}^{\\dagger }{\\hat{b}}_{n}+{\\hat{a}}_{2}{\\hat{b}}_{n}^{\\dagger })\\), where \\(\\widetilde{g}={g}_{0}{\\alpha }_{1}\\) is the effective coupling rate and \u03b11 is the amplitude of the coherent state in mode \\({\\hat{a}}_{1}\\). Similarly, when pumping the blue mode, the substitution \\({\\hat{a}}_{2}\\to {\\alpha }_{2}\\) yields a squeezing Hamiltonian of the form \\({{\\mathcal{H}}}_{{\\rm{Sq.}}}=-\\hslash \\widetilde{g}({\\hat{a}}_{1}{\\hat{b}}_{n}+{\\hat{a}}_{1}^{\\dagger }{\\hat{b}}_{n}^{\\dagger })\\), where \\(\\widetilde{g}={g}_{0}{\\alpha }_{2}\\) is the effective coupling rate and \u03b12 is the amplitude of the coherent state in mode \\({\\hat{a}}_{2}\\). The cooperativity for this optomechanical system is \\(C=4| \\widetilde{g}{| }^{2}\/({\\varGamma }_{0}\\kappa )=4| {g}_{0}{| }^{2}| \\alpha {| }^{2}\/({\\varGamma }_{0}\\kappa )\\), where \u2223\u03b1\u22232 is the intracavity photon number (nc) produced through resonant pumping<a data-track=\"click\" data-track-action=\"reference anchor\" data-track-label=\"link\" data-test=\"citation-ref\" aria-label=\"Reference 43\" title=\"Kharel, P. et al. High-frequency cavity optomechanics using bulk acoustic phonons. Sci. Adv. 5, eaav0582 (2019).\" href=\"http:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s41567-025-02989-4#ref-CR43\" id=\"ref-link-section-d35453137e2335\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">43<\/a>. Hence, resonant enhancement of the photon number (nc) enables much larger effective coupling rates (\\(\\tilde{g}\\)) and cooperativities than are feasible using conventional sideband-resolved optomechanical pumping schemes<a data-track=\"click\" data-track-action=\"reference anchor\" data-track-label=\"link\" data-test=\"citation-ref\" aria-label=\"Reference 1\" title=\"Aspelmeyer, M., Kippenberg, T. J. &amp; Marquardt, F. Cavity optomechanics. Rev. Mod. Phys. 86, 1391&#x2013;1452 (2014).\" href=\"http:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s41567-025-02989-4#ref-CR1\" id=\"ref-link-section-d35453137e2372\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">1<\/a>,<a data-track=\"click\" data-track-action=\"reference anchor\" data-track-label=\"link\" data-test=\"citation-ref\" aria-label=\"Reference 31\" title=\"Kharel, P. et al. Multimode strong coupling in cavity optomechanics. Phys. Rev. Appl. 18, 024054 (2022).\" href=\"http:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s41567-025-02989-4#ref-CR31\" id=\"ref-link-section-d35453137e2375\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">31<\/a>,<a data-track=\"click\" data-track-action=\"reference anchor\" data-track-label=\"link\" data-test=\"citation-ref\" aria-label=\"Reference 43\" title=\"Kharel, P. et al. High-frequency cavity optomechanics using bulk acoustic phonons. Sci. Adv. 5, eaav0582 (2019).\" href=\"http:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s41567-025-02989-4#ref-CR43\" id=\"ref-link-section-d35453137e2378\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">43<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>To quantify the coupling rate (g0) and the fundamental linewidth of the phonon mode (\u03930) within our cavity optomechanical system, we began by performing power-dependent OMIT and optomechanically induced amplification (OMIA) measurements. The OMIT (OMIA) spectra of Fig. <a data-track=\"click\" data-track-label=\"link\" data-track-action=\"figure anchor\" href=\"http:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s41567-025-02989-4#Fig2\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">2a,b<\/a> were obtained by resonantly pumping the red (blue) mode with the control laser while a probe tone, generated by intensity modulation of the control laser, was swept through the blue (red) cavity mode at frequency \u03c92 (\u03c91) to perform transmission measurements; during such measurements the non-resonant, lower (higher) sideband generated by the modulator had negligible impact, as it was rejected by the optical cavity. As before, Pound\u2013Drever\u2013Hall locking was used to ensure that the control laser remained on resonance with the appropriate cavity mode during each measurement. The transmitted optical carrier and probe tone were collected by a collimator and combined with a fixed, frequency-shifted local oscillator (LO) to enable heterodyne measurement of the transmitted probe-wave.<\/p>\n<p>Fig. 2: OMIT and OMIA measurements.<a class=\"c-article-section__figure-link\" data-test=\"img-link\" data-track=\"click\" data-track-label=\"image\" data-track-action=\"view figure\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s41567-025-02989-4\/figures\/2\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"Fig2\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/41567_2025_2989_Fig2_HTML.png\" alt=\"figure 2\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"685\" height=\"952\"\/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>a, OMIT traces for several transmitted optical power levels showing broadening of the OMIT dip with increased power (each trace is artificially offset by 2.5\u2009dB for better visibility). b, OMIA traces for several transmitted optical power levels showing narrowing of the OMIA peak with increased power (each trace is artificially offset by 1.5\u2009dB for better visibility). c, Each OMIT (OMIA) trace was fitted to a Lorentzian and the evaluated linewidths are plotted as a function of transmitted power in blue circles (red diamonds). OMIA data is reflected to negative powers to enable single linear fit (dashed line) of the entire dataset. Inset: magnified view of the low-power-levels region. The black circle marks the fitted fundamental linewidth \u03930\u2009=\u20092\u03c0\u2009\u00d7\u2009600\u2009Hz.<\/p>\n<p><a data-track=\"click\" data-track-label=\"link\" data-track-action=\"supplementary material anchor\" href=\"http:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s41567-025-02989-4#MOESM2\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Source data<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Next, we analysed these data to extract the parameters of the optomechanical system. OMIT measurements taken at control laser powers between 7\u2009\u03bcW and 1.3\u2009mW are shown in Fig. <a data-track=\"click\" data-track-label=\"link\" data-track-action=\"figure anchor\" href=\"http:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s41567-025-02989-4#Fig2\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">2a<\/a>. The optical power for each trace was measured in transmission to ensure that it is representative of the intracavity photon number (see Supplementary Information Section <a data-track=\"click\" data-track-label=\"link\" data-track-action=\"supplementary material anchor\" href=\"http:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s41567-025-02989-4#MOESM1\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">V<\/a> for further details). Figure <a data-track=\"click\" data-track-label=\"link\" data-track-action=\"figure anchor\" href=\"http:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s41567-025-02989-4#Fig2\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">2b<\/a> shows measured OMIA traces for a series of transmitted control laser power levels below C\u2009=\u20091, which marks the onset of optomechanical self-oscillation.<\/p>\n<p>To extract the effective damping rate of the phonon mode at each optical power, we first fitted these experimental traces to the Lorenzian form predicted from the OMIT and OMIA response, yielding the data seen in Fig. <a data-track=\"click\" data-track-label=\"link\" data-track-action=\"figure anchor\" href=\"http:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s41567-025-02989-4#Fig2\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">2c<\/a>. We then fitted these extracted power-dependent linewidths to the theoretical damping rates given by \u0393\u00b1(C)\u2009=\u2009\u03930\u2009\u00b1\u2009\u0393opt\u2009=\u2009\u03930(1\u2009\u00b1\u2009C) predicted for OMIT (\u0393+(C)) and OMIA (\u0393\u2212(C))<a data-track=\"click\" data-track-action=\"reference anchor\" data-track-label=\"link\" data-test=\"citation-ref\" aria-label=\"Reference 1\" title=\"Aspelmeyer, M., Kippenberg, T. J. &amp; Marquardt, F. Cavity optomechanics. Rev. Mod. Phys. 86, 1391&#x2013;1452 (2014).\" href=\"http:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s41567-025-02989-4#ref-CR1\" id=\"ref-link-section-d35453137e2501\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">1<\/a>,<a data-track=\"click\" data-track-action=\"reference anchor\" data-track-label=\"link\" data-test=\"citation-ref\" aria-label=\"Reference 43\" title=\"Kharel, P. et al. High-frequency cavity optomechanics using bulk acoustic phonons. Sci. Adv. 5, eaav0582 (2019).\" href=\"http:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s41567-025-02989-4#ref-CR43\" id=\"ref-link-section-d35453137e2504\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">43<\/a>. Because C is proportional to the intracavity photon number, \u0393+(C) (\u0393\u2212(C)) increases (decreases) linearly with optical power for the case of OMIT (OMIA) measurements. To enable a single linear fit for the entire dataset, the OMIA data was reflected to negative power levels, as seen in Fig. <a data-track=\"click\" data-track-label=\"link\" data-track-action=\"figure anchor\" href=\"http:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s41567-025-02989-4#Fig2\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">2c<\/a>. The linear fits of the data reveal a fundamental linewidth of \u03930\u2009=\u20092\u03c0\u2009\u00d7\u2009600\u2009(\u00b130)\u2009Hz. Unity cooperativity (C\u2009=\u20091) was achieved at transmitted power level of 22.8\u2009\u00b1\u20091.2\u2009\u03bcW, corresponding to a single-photon coupling rate of g0\u2009=\u20096.08\u2009\u00b1\u20090.03\u2009Hz. Hence, mode-selective coupling to the high-Q-factor \u03bcHBAR phonon modes permitted us to achieve C\u2009=\u20091 with optical powers that are orders of magnitude smaller than those required in previous studies<a data-track=\"click\" data-track-action=\"reference anchor\" data-track-label=\"link\" data-test=\"citation-ref\" aria-label=\"Reference 31\" title=\"Kharel, P. et al. Multimode strong coupling in cavity optomechanics. Phys. Rev. Appl. 18, 024054 (2022).\" href=\"http:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s41567-025-02989-4#ref-CR31\" id=\"ref-link-section-d35453137e2548\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">31<\/a>. (For a complementary dataset demonstrating unity cooperativity at 11\u2009\u03bcW transmitted power levels, see Supplementary Information Section <a data-track=\"click\" data-track-label=\"link\" data-track-action=\"supplementary material anchor\" href=\"http:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s41567-025-02989-4#MOESM1\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">VIII<\/a>.)<\/p>\n<p>To perform laser cooling, we resonantly pumped the red mode (\u03c91) with the control laser while measuring the spontaneous AS light emitted from the blue mode (\u03c92); during these measurements, the probe tone was turned off. The frequency-shifted optical local oscillator was combined with the transmitted light to perform heterodyne spectral measurement of spontaneously scattered AS light. These spectra were acquired using a high-speed photodetector and an electrical spectrum analyser. The optical local oscillator was amplified and passed through a high-rejection narrow-bandwidth filter to enable a shot-noise limited detection. Figure <a data-track=\"click\" data-track-label=\"link\" data-track-action=\"figure anchor\" href=\"http:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s41567-025-02989-4#Fig3\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">3a\u2013c<\/a> shows examples of spontaneously measured AS spectra with increasing control laser powers of 24\u2009mW, 386\u2009mW and 1.3\u2009mW, respectively; each trace is averaged over 4,000 acquisitions. The traces were fitted to Lorentzian lineshapes (dashed red lines) from which the linewidths and areas (shaded red) were extracted. For increasing optical powers, the AS linewidth broadens in a manner that is consistent with increasing optical damping of the phonon mode; these measurements also show a change in the peak brightness of the AS Lorenzian spectrum that is consistent with a reduction in phonon population (Supplementary Information Section <a data-track=\"click\" data-track-label=\"link\" data-track-action=\"supplementary material anchor\" href=\"http:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s41567-025-02989-4#MOESM1\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">IV<\/a>). The complete dataset of spontaneous AS spectra can be found in Supplementary Information Section <a data-track=\"click\" data-track-label=\"link\" data-track-action=\"supplementary material anchor\" href=\"http:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s41567-025-02989-4#MOESM1\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">VIII<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Fig. 3: Laser cooling measurements.<a class=\"c-article-section__figure-link\" data-test=\"img-link\" data-track=\"click\" data-track-label=\"image\" data-track-action=\"view figure\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s41567-025-02989-4\/figures\/3\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"Fig3\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/41567_2025_2989_Fig3_HTML.png\" alt=\"figure 3\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"685\" height=\"742\"\/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>a\u2013c, Spontaneous measurements of the RF power spectral density (PSD) of the heterodyne-detected AS light scattered by the cooling process for growing control power levels of 24\u2009mW (a), 386\u2009mW (b) and 1.3\u2009mW (c). The measured traces (blue) were averaged over 4,000 acquisitions and fitted to Lorentzians (red dashed line), and the extracted linewidths and areas (shaded red) were used to evaluate the cooled phonon population. The background levels (shaded grey) match the expected increase due to shot noise and show no notable heating of the mode by the control laser (Supplementary Information Sections <a data-track=\"click\" data-track-label=\"link\" data-track-action=\"supplementary material anchor\" href=\"http:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s41567-025-02989-4#MOESM1\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">IV<\/a> and <a data-track=\"click\" data-track-label=\"link\" data-track-action=\"supplementary material anchor\" href=\"http:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s41567-025-02989-4#MOESM1\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">VII<\/a>). More spontaneous AS cooling traces can be found in Supplementary Information Section <a data-track=\"click\" data-track-label=\"link\" data-track-action=\"supplementary material anchor\" href=\"http:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s41567-025-02989-4#MOESM1\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">VIII<\/a>. d, Extracted Lorentzian linewidths of spontaneous measurements for different control powers (red diamonds) show excellent agreement with the linear fit and the OMIT measurements (blue circles). Error bars denote standard deviation of linewidth obtained by a Lorentzian fit. e, Starting from \u3008n\u3009\u2009=\u2009nth, the actively cooled steady-state phonon population was deduced from the measured linewidth (blue circles) and area (red diamonds) of each trace. Calculations yield values in good agreement with the analytical model (grey dashed line). The lowest phonon population for transmitted power of 1.3\u2009mW was \u3008n\u3009\u2009\u2248\u20090.36 phonons. Error bars denote standard deviation of the phonon population estimation for each calculation method. f, Measured (diamonds) normalized areas of the AS traces show good agreement with the OMIT-based model of \\(\\tilde{C}(P)\/(1+\\tilde{C}(P))\\).<\/p>\n<p><a data-track=\"click\" data-track-label=\"link\" data-track-action=\"supplementary material anchor\" href=\"http:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s41567-025-02989-4#MOESM2\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Source data<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Using these spectra, in conjunction with the measured parameters of the cavity optomechanical system, we quantified the reduction in the phonon population produced by laser cooling. The linewidths extracted from the AS spectra after accounting for the spectrum analyser detection bandwidth (diamonds) are plotted in Fig. <a data-track=\"click\" data-track-label=\"link\" data-track-action=\"figure anchor\" href=\"http:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s41567-025-02989-4#Fig3\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">3d<\/a>, demonstrating consistency with those extracted from OMIT measurement (circles) at each power level. The area of the Lorenzian AS resonance, which is proportional to the emitted AS photon flux, also follows the predicted \\(\\tilde{C}(P)\/(1+\\tilde{C}(P))\\) dependence, as seen in Fig. <a data-track=\"click\" data-track-label=\"link\" data-track-action=\"figure anchor\" href=\"http:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s41567-025-02989-4#Fig3\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">3f<\/a>. Here \\(\\tilde{C}(P)\\) is the linear fit of cooperativity as a function of transmitted power, extracted from the OMIT data.<\/p>\n<p>Next, we used these measurements to estimate the phonon occupation number. Owing to the unique features of our system, sideband asymmetry measurements<a data-track=\"click\" data-track-action=\"reference anchor\" data-track-label=\"link\" data-test=\"citation-ref\" aria-label=\"Reference 27\" title=\"Mayor, F. M. et al. High photon&#x2013;phonon pair generation rate in a two-dimensional optomechanical crystal. Nat. Commun. 16, 2576 (2025).\" href=\"http:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s41567-025-02989-4#ref-CR27\" id=\"ref-link-section-d35453137e2829\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">27<\/a>,<a data-track=\"click\" data-track-action=\"reference anchor\" data-track-label=\"link\" data-test=\"citation-ref\" aria-label=\"Reference 28\" title=\"Meenehan, S. M. et al. Pulsed excitation dynamics of an optomechanical crystal resonator near its quantum ground state of motion. Phys. Rev. X 5, 041002 (2015).\" href=\"http:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s41567-025-02989-4#ref-CR28\" id=\"ref-link-section-d35453137e2832\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">28<\/a>,<a data-track=\"click\" data-track-action=\"reference anchor\" data-track-label=\"link\" data-test=\"citation-ref\" aria-label=\"Reference 44\" title=\"Doeleman, H. M. et al. Brillouin optomechanics in the quantum ground state. Phys. Rev. Res. 5, 043140 (2023).\" href=\"http:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s41567-025-02989-4#ref-CR44\" id=\"ref-link-section-d35453137e2835\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">44<\/a>,<a data-track=\"click\" data-track-action=\"reference anchor\" data-track-label=\"link\" data-test=\"citation-ref\" title=\"Safavi-Naeini, A. H. et al. Observation of quantum motion of a nanomechanical resonator. Phys. Rev. Lett. 108, 033602 (2012).\" href=\"#ref-CR50\" id=\"ref-link-section-d35453137e2838\">50<\/a>,<a data-track=\"click\" data-track-action=\"reference anchor\" data-track-label=\"link\" data-test=\"citation-ref\" title=\"Purdy, T. et al. Optomechanical Raman-ratio thermometry. Phys. Rev. A 92, 031802 (2015).\" href=\"#ref-CR51\" id=\"ref-link-section-d35453137e2838_1\">51<\/a>,<a data-track=\"click\" data-track-action=\"reference anchor\" data-track-label=\"link\" data-test=\"citation-ref\" aria-label=\"Reference 52\" title=\"Underwood, M. et al. Measurement of the motional sidebands of a nanogram-scale oscillator in the quantum regime. Phys. Rev. A 92, 061801 (2015).\" href=\"http:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s41567-025-02989-4#ref-CR52\" id=\"ref-link-section-d35453137e2841\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">52<\/a> were inaccessible (Supplementary Information Section <a data-track=\"click\" data-track-label=\"link\" data-track-action=\"supplementary material anchor\" href=\"http:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s41567-025-02989-4#MOESM1\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">IV<\/a>). Therefore, we based the thermometry measurements on the available linewidth and area of the measured AS spectra. Under the influence of the cooling laser, the phonon occupation could be expressed as \u3008n(C)\u3009\u2009=\u2009nth[\u03930\/\u0393+(C)]\u2009=\u2009nth\/(1\u2009+\u2009C) (ref. <a data-track=\"click\" data-track-action=\"reference anchor\" data-track-label=\"link\" data-test=\"citation-ref\" aria-label=\"Reference 1\" title=\"Aspelmeyer, M., Kippenberg, T. J. &amp; Marquardt, F. Cavity optomechanics. Rev. Mod. Phys. 86, 1391&#x2013;1452 (2014).\" href=\"http:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s41567-025-02989-4#ref-CR1\" id=\"ref-link-section-d35453137e2878\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">1<\/a>), where nth is the occupation of the phonon mode at thermal equilibrium. The thermal population, nth, was taken to be 22.4 for all spontaneous measurements, which is consistent with an in-situ measurement of the \u03bcHBAR temperature (13.6\u2009K). Using \u03930 and \u0393+(C) derived from OMIT and spontaneous lineshapes, respectively, we evaluated this expression to find the phonon occupation versus cooling power, as shown in Fig. <a data-track=\"click\" data-track-label=\"link\" data-track-action=\"figure anchor\" href=\"http:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s41567-025-02989-4#Fig3\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">3e<\/a>. We used the OMIT data, rather than the spontaneous measurements, to characterize the fundamental linewidth of the phononic mode owing to the higher confidence of the fit.<\/p>\n<p>Alternatively, the phonon population could be estimated based on the AS spectrum area (that is, AS photon flux), using the expression \\(\\langle n(P)\\rangle ={n}_{{\\rm{th}}}[\\tilde{{\\mathcal{V}}}(P){\\varGamma }_{+}(P)\/4\\tilde{C}(P){\\varGamma }_{0}]\\). Here \\(\\tilde{{\\mathcal{V}}}(P)\\) is the AS peak brightness normalized to 1 at C\u2009=\u20091, \u0393+(P) is the measured spontaneous linewidth and \\(\\tilde{C}(P)\\) and \u03930 are the experimentally derived cooperativity as a function of transmitted power and the fundamental linewidth, respectively, both extracted from the high confidence OMIT measurements. As seen in Fig. <a data-track=\"click\" data-track-label=\"link\" data-track-action=\"figure anchor\" href=\"http:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s41567-025-02989-4#Fig3\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">3e<\/a>, the estimated phonon population based on the spectral area (diamonds) shows good agreement with that from the measured linewidth (circles); these data are also consistent with the trend line (dashed) obtained by evaluating \\(\\langle n(P)\\rangle ={n}_{{\\rm{th}}}\/(1+\\tilde{C}(P))\\) using the power dependence of the cooperativity estimated from OMIT measurements. See Supplementary Information Section <a data-track=\"click\" data-track-label=\"link\" data-track-action=\"supplementary material anchor\" href=\"http:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s41567-025-02989-4#MOESM1\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">IV<\/a> for derivations of the above quantities and details of data analysis.<\/p>\n<p>These data demonstrate laser cooling of the \u03bcHBAR to the ground state. At the highest cooling power (1.3\u2009mW), a phonon occupation of &lt;0.4 was reached; the phonon occupation was estimated from the AS spectra using the spectral linewidth (circles) and area (diamonds), yielding an occupation of 0.35\u2009\u00b1\u20090.034 and 0.375\u2009\u00b1\u20090.04, respectively. Although lower phonon occupation numbers are likely to be achievable, the appearance of higher-order phonon modes (L1) within the AS spectrum at powers above 1.3\u2009mW complicated phonon occupation measurements at higher powers. Observe that agreement between the theoretical and experimental phonon occupation seen in Fig. <a data-track=\"click\" data-track-label=\"link\" data-track-action=\"figure anchor\" href=\"http:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s41567-025-02989-4#Fig3\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">3e<\/a> was achieved at all control powers without a correction to the bath temperature, indicating a negligible degree of absorption-induced heating through these experiments. Note that, at P\u2009=\u20091.3\u2009mW, this system reached an effective quantum cooperativity of Cq\u2009=\u2009C\/nth\u2009=\u20092.58, indicating operation in the quantum coherent regime<a data-track=\"click\" data-track-action=\"reference anchor\" data-track-label=\"link\" data-test=\"citation-ref\" aria-label=\"Reference 14\" title=\"Ren, H. et al. Two-dimensional optomechanical crystal cavity with high quantum cooperativity. Nat. Commun. 11, 3373 (2020).\" href=\"http:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s41567-025-02989-4#ref-CR14\" id=\"ref-link-section-d35453137e3263\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">14<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>To prevent unintentional noise-induced phonon heating during these measurements, a high-rejection (60\u2009dB) filter was used before the cavity, to suppress any spontaneous photons and reduce phase noise at 12.6-GHz offset frequencies. Estimates based on the measured laser noise levels indicate that any heating caused by residual laser noise had a negligible effect, adding fewer than 2\u2009\u00d7\u200910\u22124 phonons to the phonon population at the maximum power levels used (see Supplementary Information Sections <a data-track=\"click\" data-track-label=\"link\" data-track-action=\"supplementary material anchor\" href=\"http:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s41567-025-02989-4#MOESM1\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">VI<\/a>\u2013<a data-track=\"click\" data-track-label=\"link\" data-track-action=\"supplementary material anchor\" href=\"http:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s41567-025-02989-4#MOESM1\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">VII<\/a> for details).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The cavity optomechanical system In what follows, we build our cavity optomechanical system around the \u03bcHBAR seen in&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":62409,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[8878,49,48,8877,8882,8881,3673,8876,8879,2280,8880,314,6814,37833,66,8875],"class_list":{"0":"post-62408","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-physics","8":"tag-atomic","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-canada","11":"tag-classical-and-continuum-physics","12":"tag-complex-systems","13":"tag-condensed-matter-physics","14":"tag-general","15":"tag-mathematical-and-computational-physics","16":"tag-molecular","17":"tag-nonlinear-optics","18":"tag-optical-and-plasma-physics","19":"tag-physics","20":"tag-quantum-mechanics","21":"tag-quantum-optics","22":"tag-science","23":"tag-theoretical"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62408","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=62408"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62408\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/62409"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=62408"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=62408"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=62408"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}