- Main
Periodic Optomechanical Structures for the Study of Decoherence
- Luna Rios, Jose Fernando
- Advisor(s): Bouwmeester, Dirk
Abstract
There are several unknown aspects about the decoherence mechanisms that cause the
transition of a system from the quantum to the classical regime. In this work we present
optomechanical systems, in which light couples to mechanical motion, as a suitable platform
for the study of decoherence in macroscopic systems.
We start by discussing some of the features of optomechanical systems, focusing on
the membrane-in-the-middle configuration. We then explain how optomechanical systems
can be extended to include multiple modes, which enables different state transfer
mechanisms, and we show an experimental demonstration of two such transfer schemes.
We also explain how multimode systems can exhibit an enhanced optomechanical coupling
rate for individual and collective mechanical modes.
Later we introduce periodic structures and how they can be applied at different scales
in order to improve the performance of our optomechanical devices. We first analyze the
vibrational modes of a thin membrane within the framework of linear elasticity and
proceed to show how a phononic crystal reduces the dissipation of mechanical energy in
the membrane. Next, we investigate an interference model for how a photonic crystal
can enhance the reflectivity of a membrane for out-of-plane propagating radiation. We
move on to outline the fabrication process for our optomechanical membrane devices.
We conclude with a theoretical proposal for a measurement of decoherence in a macroscopic
superposition state. This proposal relies on the state transfer techniques discussed
earlier and should be possible to implement with current technologies.
Main Content
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