Near-field coupling of a levitated nanoparticle to a photonic crystal cavity

Lorenzo Magrini, Richard A. Norte, Ralf Riedinger, Igor Marinković, David Grass, Uroš Delić, Simon Gröblacher, Sungkun Hong, and Markus Aspelmeyer

Quantum control of levitated dielectric particles is an emerging subject in quantum optomechanics. A major challenge is to efficiently measure and manipulate the particle’s motion at the Heisenberg uncertainty limit. Here we present a nanophotonic interface suited to address this problem. By optically trapping a 150 nm silica particle and placing it in the near field of a photonic crystal cavity, we achieve tunable single-photon optomechanical coupling of up to [Math Processing Error], three orders of magnitude larger than previously reported for levitated cavity optomechanical systems. Efficient collection and guiding of light through the nanophotonic structure results in a per-photon displacement sensitivity that is increased by two orders of magnitude compared to conventional far-field detection. The demonstrated performance shows a promising route for room temperature quantum optomechanics.

DOI