Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Luna Rios, Jose Fernando

Titel

Periodic Optomechanical Structures for the Study of Decoherence

Ort / Verlag

ProQuest Dissertations & Theses

Erscheinungsjahr

2020

Quelle

ProQuest Dissertations & Theses A&I

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• 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.