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Molecular optomechanics stems from the description of Raman scattering in the presence of an optical resonator using a cavity optomechanics formalism. We extend the molecular optomechanics formalism to the case of hybrid dielectric-plasmonic resonators, with multiple optical resonances and with both free-space and waveguide addressing. We demonstrate how the Raman enhancement is the product of a pump enhancement and a modified LDOS, that simply depend on the complex response functions of the hybrid system. The Fano lineshapes that result from hybridization of a broadband and narrowband modes allows reaching strong Raman enhancement with high-Q resonances, paving the way towards sideband resolved molecular optomechanics. The model allows prediction of the Raman emission ratio into different output ports and enables demonstrating a fully integrated high-Q Raman resonator exploiting multiple cavity modes coupled to the same waveguide., Comment: 12 pages, 7 figures

We investigate the optical response of a hybrid cavity quantum-electrodynamics system consisting of a quantum dot embedded in an optomechanical photonic crystal cavity. The system is coupled to an ...

A hybrid silicon/aluminum nitride waveguide on the silicon-on-insulator platform is proposed to achieve an efficient Brillouin optomechanical interaction. Both intra-optical-mode and inter-optical-mode Brillouin scattering can be achieved. The novel arrangement of symmetric electrodes provides out-of-plane electric fields for piezoelectric materials and the possibility of suspended waveguides and cavities. The piezomechanical interaction coupling strength and the Brillouin optomechanical interaction coupling strength are numerically calculated. The simulation results show that near-unity internal conversion efficiency from the microwave domain to the optical domain can be achieved. Relatively low microwave power can be used to produced up to 5 order sidebands acousto-optical modulation. The proposed scheme paves the way for efficient classical and quantum application in integrated silicon photonics.

Optically and vibrationally resonant nanophotonic devices are of particular importance for their ability to enhance optomechanical interactions, with applications in nanometrology, sensing, nano-optical control of light, and optomechanics. Here, the optically resonant excitation and detection of gigahertz vibrational modes are demonstrated in a nanoscale metasurface array fabricated on a suspended SiC membrane. With the design of the main optical and vibrational modes to be those of the individual metamolecules, resonant excitation and detection are achieved by making use of direct mechanisms for optomechanical coupling. Ultrafast optical pump-probe studies reveal a multimodal gigahertz vibrational response corresponding to the mechanical modes of the suspended nanoresonators. Wavelength and polarization dependent studies reveal that the excitation and detection of vibrations takes place through the metasurface optical modes. The dielectric metasurface pushes the modulation speed of optomechanical structures closer to their theoretical limits and presents a potential for compact and easily fabricable optical components for photonic applications.

Squeezed light is a useful phenomenon that can be exploited to improve the sensitivity of specific classes of detectors based on optomechanical effects. In this study, the effect of squeezed light ...

Realizing non-reciprocal light transmission in photonic integrated circuits is challenging and highly desirable. To break the time-reversal symmetry without the magneto-optical effect, nonlinear op...

Non-Hermitian systems, with symmetric or antisymmetric Hamiltonians under the parity-time (PT) operations, can have entirely real or imaginary eigenvalues. This fact has led to surprising discoveries such as loss-induced lasing and topological energy transfer. A merit of anti-PT systems is free of gain, but in recent efforts on making anti-PT devices, nonlinearity is still required. Here, counterintuitively, we show how to achieve anti-PT symmetry and its spontaneous breaking in a linear device by spinning a lossy resonator. Compared with a Hermitian spinning device, significantly enhanced optical isolation and ultrasensitive nanoparticle sensing are achievable in the anti-PT-broken phase. In a broader view, our work provides a new tool to study anti-PT physics, with such a wide range of applications as anti-PT lasers, anti-PT gyroscopes, and anti-PT topological photonics or optomechanics.

Benefiting from the bridgework between cavity optomechanics and optofluidics, microbubble resonators (MBRs) have attracted wide attention both in optomechanics sensing and fundamental research. In this work, we present a novel approach for achieving a fluid mass density sensor based on optomechanics in MBRs. The density responsivity can range from −1.27~−1.54 MHz/(g/ml) for 4 types of mechanical modes. The validation of responsivity is analyzed theoretically, and the calculations indicate that a shorter average radius of the shell can achieve higher responsivity. The density responsivity in a smaller sized and thicker MBR can reach −2.147 MHz/(g/ml). Due to the small volume of the MBRs, the sample consumption can be controlled to dozens of nano-liters, which can greatly reduce the cost of sensing expensive biological samples.

Information storage relies on the fast and reversible memory devices, which can read and write data easily with low energy input. In addition, in order to pursue high data storage density and miniaturizing device size, low-dimensional materials with large area to volume ratio would be preferable. Up to date, there are already a lot of explorations of two-dimensional functional material based devices with interesting phase transitions. According to Ginzburg-Landau theory, phase transition occurs when order parameter changes, under external stimuli such as temperature, electric field, or external stress. Other than these, novel phase transition mechanisms under low-frequency light irradiation has been recently proposed. The light frequency is below the corresponding energy bandgap of the semiconductors, which intuitively has very small scattering cross sections. However, according to thermodynamic theory, there could have light-matter interactions. Geometric structure can be changed and manipulated under light illumination. If ion displacements are strong enough, phase transition could occur. This optically driven phase transition approach requires no direct contacts with the sample, so that this procedure is easily controlled. In this mini-review, we briefly summarize the basic theory, computational predictions and some very recent experiments on low-frequency light induced phase transition in various systems.

Nanomechanical mass spectrometry has proven to be well suited for the analysis of high mass species such as viruses. Still, the use of one-dimensional devices such as vibrating beams forces a trade-off between analysis time and mass resolution. Complex readout schemes are also required to simultaneously monitor multiple resonance modes, which degrades resolution. These issues restrict nanomechanical MS to specific species. We demonstrate here single-particle mass spectrometry with nano-optomechanical resonators fabricated with a Very Large Scale Integration process. The unique motion sensitivity of optomechanics allows designs that are impervious to particle position, stiffness or shape, opening the way to the analysis of large aspect ratio biological objects of great significance such as viruses with a tail or fibrils. Compared to top-down beam resonators with electrical read-out and state-of-the-art mass resolution, we show a three-fold improvement in capture area with no resolution degradation, despite the use of a single resonance mode., The use of one dimensional devices in nanomechanical mass spectrometry leads to a trade-off between analysis time and resolution. Here, the authors report single-particle mass spectrometry using integrated optomechanical resonators, impervious to particle position, stiffness or shape.

Light, sound, and microwave are important tools for many interdisciplinary applications in a multi-physical environment, and they usually are inefficient to be detected simultaneously in the same physical platform. However, at the microscopic scale, these waves can unexpectedly interact with the same microstructure through resonant enhancement, making it a unique hybrid micro-system for new applications across multiple physical channels. Here we experimentally demonstrate an optomechanical microdevice based on Brillouin lasing operation in an optical microcavity as a sensitive unit to sense external light, sound, and microwave signals in the same platform. These waves can induce modulations to the microcavity Brillouin laser (MBL) in a resonance-enhanced manner through either the pressure forces including radiation pressure force or thermal absorption, allowing several novel applications such as broadband non-photovoltaic detection of light, sound-light wave mixing, and deep-subwavelength microwave imaging. These results pave the way towards on-chip integrable optomechanical solutions for sensing, free-space secure communication, and microwave imaging.

Diamond has established itself as an ideal material for photonics and optomechanics, due to its broad-band transparency and hardness. In addition, colour centres hosted within its lattice such as the nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centre, have become leading candidates for use in quantum information processing, and quantum sensors. The fabrication of nanoscale devices coupled to high quality NVs has been an outstanding challenge due to their sensitivity to magnetic, electric and strain fields within their local environment. In this work, we show how the NV centre’s ground state electron spin can be used as an embedded atomic-scale probe of the local strain caused by focused ion beam milling of nanoscale devices. This technique can thus be used to measure, and optimise material and device fabrication processes to allow diamond to reach its full potential.

A hybrid plasmonic–phononic cavity design which enables high vacuum coupling rate has been proposed in lithium niobate (LN) phononic crystals (Phncs) that have been perforated by air holes and coated with thin silver film. By tailoring the geometry, optomechanical interaction between the plasmonic modes (produced by the metal/insulator) and the phononic modes (confined by the phononic bandgap effect) is greatly enhanced. Numerical results based on finite-element method (FEM) reveal that in this hybrid plasmonic–phononic design, high vacuum coupling rate that predominantly contributed by moving boundary effect is on the order of 106 Hz, which is about one to two orders higher than that contributed by photoelastic effect shown in conventional phoxonic crystal designs. Results evidence how the vacuum coupling rate depends on geometrical parameters like the radius of the defect air hole, the thickness of silver layer, and LN layer. The simultaneous confinement and strong coupling, combined with other advantages as lack of constraint to the refractive index, and integration of piezoelectric material and metal in a chip, this hybrid design may be suitable for non-invasive biological sensing, optomechanically tunable plasmonic heater for drug release and lab-on-chip devices.

Electro-optic tuning by using lithium niobate (LiNbO3) possesses the unique features of sub-picosecond response time, low power consumption, reduced thermal noise, and combination of nonlinear-optic applications. Here, we demonstrate a new device design and fabrication to realize on-chip electro-optically tunable LiNbO3 microresonators with high performance. This device design solves the problem of cancel-out of effective index variation induced by electro-optic effect in the microresonators made of anisotropic materials. Besides, it enables the device functions of high quality factor, polarization-selective electro-optic tuning, and large free spectral range simultaneously with few high-order modes. The microdisk structure with the air-bridge wiring produced by the standard semiconductor process facilitates the realization of integrated photonic circuits. The presented device achieves the electro-optic tuning rate up to 29.2 pm/V and the large free spectral range of 17.1 nm. The proposed device design offers highly-efficient platforms for nonlinear optics, cavity optomechanics, Kerr frequency comb generation, and cavity quantum electrodynamics.

We propose a scheme of a quantum photon polarisation converter, which is based on controlled electron – photon – phonon transitions in a hybrid semiconductor nanostructure. This structure consists of a GaAs/InAs quantum dot (QD) that has a parallelepiped shape and contains a single electron, and an optomechanical microcavity (MC) based on a photonic crystal (PC) that supports two orthogonally polarised photonic modes and one mechanical (phonon) mode. Within the framework of the microscopic theory, the QD and MC performance characteristics are found. Populations of states of the system as functions of time and its parameters are calculated. The principal possibility of photon polarisation conversion using transitions in a five-level resonance scheme for coherent (single-photon) and steady-state (subphoton) regimes is shown. The MC optical and mechanical spectra are simulated, and the PC structure parameters are selected to ensure the efficient operation of the converter.

Optomechanics is a promising field with important applications in ultrasensitive sensing and quantum information processing. A variety of micromechanical resonators are proposed and demonstrated fo...

We show that a silicon nitride optomechanical membrane, acting as an accelerometer, can be used to search for dark matter.

Controlling thermal energy transfer at the nanoscale and thermal properties has become critically important in many applications since it often limits device performance. In this study, the effects on thermal conductivity arising from the nanoscale structure of free-standing nanocrystalline silicon films and the increasing surface-to-volume ratio when fabricated into suspended optomechanical nanobeams are studied. Thermal transport and elucidate the relative impact of different grain size distributions and geometrical dimensions on thermal conductivity are characterized. A micro time-domain thermoreflectance method to study free-standing nanocrystalline silicon films and find a drastic reduction in the thermal conductivity, down to values below 10 W m–1 K–1 is used, with a stronger decrease for smaller grains. In optomechanical nanostructures, this effect is smaller than in membranes due to the competition of surface scattering in decreasing thermal conductivity. Finally, a novel versatile contactless characterization technique that can be adapted to any structure supporting a thermally shifted optical resonance is introduced. The thermal conductivity data agrees quantitatively with the thermoreflectance measurements. This study opens the way to a more generalized thermal characterization of optomechanical cavities and to create hot-spots with engineered shapes at the desired position in the structures as a means to study thermal transport in coupled photon-phonon structures., This work was supported by the European Commission FET Open project PHENOMEN (G.A. Nr. 713450). ICN2 was supported by the S. Ochoa program from the Spanish Research Agency (AEI, grant no. SEV-2017-0706) and by the CERCA Programme / Generalitat de Catalunya. ICN2 authors acknowledge the support from the Spanish MICINN project SIP (PGC2018-101743-B-I00). D.N.U. and M.F.C. acknowledge the support of a Ramón y Cajal postdoctoral fellowship (RYC-2014-15392) and a Severo Ochoa studentship, respectively. E.C.A. acknowledges financial support from the EU FET Open Project NANOPOLY. (GA 829061). A.M. acknowledges support from Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades (grant PGC2018-094490-B, PRX18/00126) and Generalitat Valenciana (grants PROMETEO/2019/123, and IDIFEDER/2018/033).

Geometrical optics approximation is a classic method for calculating the optical trapping force on particles whose sizes are larger than the wavelength of the trapping light. In this study, the effect of the lens misalignment on optical force was analyzed in the geometrical optics regime. We used geometrical optics to analyze the influence of off-axis placement and the tilt of the lens on the trapping position and stiffness in an optical trap. Numerical calculation results showed that lens tilting has a greater impact on the optical trap force than the off-axis misalignments, and both misalignments will couple with each other and cause a shift of the equilibrium point and the asymmetry of the optical trap stiffness in different ways. Our research revealed the asymmetry in optical traps caused by lens misalignment and can provide guidance for optimize lens placement in future experiments.

Brillouin scattering has been widely exploited for advanced photonics functionalities such as microwave photonics, signal processing, sensing, lasing, and more recently in micro- and nano-photonic waveguides. So far, all the works have focused on the opto-acoustic interaction driven from the core region of micro- and nano-waveguides. Here we observe, for the first time, an efficient Brillouin scattering generated by an evanescent field nearby a sub-wavelength waveguide embedded in a pressurised gas cell, with a maximum gain coefficient of $18.90 \pm 0.17$ m$^{-1}$W$^{-1}$. This gain is 11 times larger than the highest Brillouin gain obtained in a hollow-core fibre and 79 times larger than in a standard single-mode fibre. The realisation of strong free-space Brillouin scattering from a waveguide benefits from the flexibility of confined light while providing a direct access to the opto-acoustic interaction, as required in free-space optoacoustics such as Brillouin spectroscopy and microscopy. Therefore, our work creates an important bridge between Brillouin scattering in waveguides, Brillouin spectroscopy and microscopy, and opens new avenues in light-sound interactions, optomechanics, sensing, lasing and imaging., Comment: Main manuscript: 8 pages, 6 figures; Supplementary: 5 pages, 3 figures

The nonlinear optomechanical coupling is an attracting characteristic in the field of optomechanics. However, the strength of single photon optomechanical coupling is still within weak coupling regime. Using the optomechanical coupling to achieve strong nonlinear interaction between photons is still a challenge. In this paper, we propose a scheme by employing optomechanical and spin-mechanical interactions to enhance the nonlinearity of photons. An effective Hamiltonian is derived, which shows that the self-Kerr and cross-Kerr nonlinearity strengths can be enhanced by adjusting the classical pumping or enhancing the spin-mechanical coupling strength. In addition, we investigate the potential usage of the nonlinearity in the photon blockade. We demonstrate that the single and two photon blockades can occur in two super modes.

The intracavity optical tweezers is a new, to the best of our knowledge, cavity optomechanics system, implementing a self-feedback control of the particle’s position by trapping the particle inside an active ring cavity. This self-feedback mechanism efficiently constructs a novel potential in the cavity. Here we predict and give experimental evidence for the self-feedback induced optical bistability in dual-beam intracavity optical tweezers. Then the characteristics of these bistable potential wells are investigated. The results show that we can prevent the bistable behaviors from destabilizing the trapping stability through tuning the foci offset of two propagating beams in the cavity. This contributes to the use of intracavity optical tweezers as a powerful tool for optical manipulation. Importantly, the thermally activated transition of the trapped particle in the bistable potential is observed for particular experimental parameters. Further investigation of this phenomenon could underlie the mechanism of many metastable-related processes in physics, chemistry, and biology.

Microfluidic optomechanical device are a unique optofluidics platform that can exhibit optomechanical oscillation in the 10-20 MHz, driven by radiation pressure (RP). The resonant enhancement of both mechanical and optical response in microcavity optomechanical devices allows exquisitely sensitive measurements of environment stimuli (pressure, force, sound speed change) and non-solid states of matter (freely flowing particles, viscous fluids). In this work, we experimentally investigate temperature tuning of these hollow-shell oscillators. We also demonstrate the effect of temperature on the frequency domain of optical machine oscillation resonance shift and applied it to the field of temperature sensing. Our result is a step towards optomechanical sensor in the field of temperature.

Levitated microspheres have enabled a wide variety of precision sensing applications which have caught great attentions in recent years. Optical tweezers technology is one of the most important methods of microspheres levitation. The stability of laser power directly affects the microspheres levitation and the precision of the measurement. This paper discusses the major factors of power stabilization in semiconductor laser. A PID-controlled model is used to control the feedback on the laser. The system mode is established after the analyzing of the characteristic of the model parameters. The experiment is demonstrated with a commercial semiconductor laser. With the external power stabilization module a 16dB laser power stability control is achieved at the relaxation oscillation, and the long-term stability is improved from 3% to 0.4%.

In this paper, we combined cavity optomechanics and quantum mechanical mechanism of van der Waals force to study the dynamic behavior of interacting bimolecules in the plasmonic localized field, and extend it to the interacting multi-molecular system. We explored how plasmonic optomechanical coupling affects the strength of intermolecular interactions. Based on our results, we propose to use optical field to modulate the intermolecular interaction potential in plasmonic cavity, which can be utilized in the enhancement of the efficiency of the molecular self-assembly process and controlling the yield of the reaction in an optical environment. This research extends molecular optomechanics from intramolecular interactions to intermolecular interactions and may has high application potential in some nanostructure synthesis.

A novel, to the best of our knowledge, method is proposed in this study to permit the controllable resolution of a micro-angle measurement by using a Michelson interferometer. The resolution of the proposed system can be adjusted by changing the distances between a pair of parallel mirrors. Through experiments, it was observed that as the distance was changed from 0 to 6 mm, the corresponding resolution was significantly altered from 22.88 to 14.02 µrad. Compared with other small angle measurement methods, the proposed method can realize the conversion of multiple measurement resolutions more easily and conveniently.

Levitated optomechanical systems experience a tremendous development on detecting weak force and torque with the center of mass motion and rotation of the levitated particle. Here the levitated optomechanical system is established on a rotating platform, and the centrifugal motion of the particle is observed after rotating the optical platform. The centrifugal displacement of the particle is experimentally proven to show a quadratic function relation with the rotation speed, and the stiffness of the trap and the mass of the levitated particle are obtained from it separately. Furthermore, the centrifugal motion makes the particle deviate from the laser focus center, which would decrease the particle spin speed. These results will help to understand the centrifugal motion and fully consider this effect when the optomechanical system rotates.

The chaotic light source is one of the most crucial foundations in optical physics studies and photonic devices. The microcavity provides the predominant solution of compact chaotic light sources in integrated photonics. Still, its prefixed feature has severely ruled out access to tuning for meeting the ever-increasing demands of the general-purpose chaotic light source in engineering. Here we report a demonstration of a chaotic light source with a switchable bandpass--band-stop chaotic emission and tunable bandwidth in a spinning microcavity anti-parity-time (anti-$\mathcal{PT}$). system. In addition, the arrangement of anti-$\mathcal{PT}$ microcavity presents several phenomena such as loss-induced chaotic emission and two different chaotic emissions from one microcavity light source. Such advantages offer another possible way to advance multiplex photonic devices and on-chip chaotic light source fabrication. These results provide a promising approach for the tunable chaotic source and serve as tools for applications in secure communications, electromechanical switching, and exploring non-Hermitian physics.

We theoretically investigate the optical output fields of a photonic-molecule optomechanical system in an optomechanically induced transparency (OMIT) regime, in which the optomechanical cavity is optically driven by a strong pump laser field and a weak probe laser field and the mechanical mode is driven by weak coherent phonon driving. The numerical simulations indicate that when the driven frequency of the phonon pump equals the frequency difference of the two laser fields, we show an enhancement OMIT where the probe transmission can exceed unity via controlling the driving amplitude and pump phase of the phonon driving. In addition, the phase dispersion of the transmitted probe field can be modified for different parametric regimes, which leads to a tunable delayed probe light transmission. We further study the group delay of the output probe field with numerical simulations, which can reach a tunable conversion from slow to fast light with the manipulation of the pump laser power, the ratio parameter of the two cavities, and the driving amplitude and phase of the weak phonon pump.

Quantum frequency conversion between superconducting (SC) microwave qubits and telecom optical photons is critical for long distance communication of networked SC quantum processors. While SC qubits operate at cryogenic temperatures to sustain their quantum coherence, converting them to the optical domain enables transferring the quantum states to room temperature and over long distances. For such a quantum state transduction process, several schemes have been investigated, including optomechanics, magnons, piezomechanics, and Pockels electro-optics (EO). The EO conversion approach is particularly attractive since it is broadband, low noise, mechanically and thermally stable (i.e., does not rely on freestanding structures), scalable (largescale integration of EO devices with superconducting circuits is possible), and tunable (e.g., using bias voltages). In this presentation we review our progress in an electro-optic based quantum transduction and discuss the promises and challenges.

Optical binding of microparticles offers a versatile playground for investigating the optomechanics of levitated multi-particle systems. We report millimeter-range optical binding of polystyrene microparticles in hollow-core photonic crystal fiber. The first particle scatters the incident L P 01 mode into several L P 0 n modes, creating a beat pattern that exerts a position-dependent force on the second particle. Particle binding results from the interplay of the forces created by counterpropagating beams. A femtosecond trapping laser is used so that group velocity walk-off eliminates disturbance caused by higher order modes accidentally excited at the fiber input. The inter-particle distance can be optically switched over 2 orders of magnitude (from 42 µm to 3 mm), and the bound particle pairs can be translated along the fiber by unbalancing the powers in the counterpropagating trapping beams. The frequency response of a bound particle pair is investigated at low gas pressure by driving with an intensity-modulated control beam. The system offers new degrees of freedom for manipulating the dynamics and configurations of optically levitated microparticle arrays.

The high Q of microcavities, and the ultimate confinement of plasmonics may be advantageously combined in hybrid photonic-plasmonic resonators for ultrastrong light-matter interactions for SERS, polaritonic chemistry, and novel light sources. I will present the unique merits of hybrids on basis of plasmonic-nanoparticle-on-mirror systems in cavities as compared to simple metasurface etalons and constructs on basis of dielectric microdisk cavities and simple dipole antennas. I will discuss experimental evidence from linear mode spectroscopy, femtosecond SHG and two photon luminescence studies, and SERS, and will provide a viewpoint on potential uses for sideband-resolved molecular optomechanics.

Diamond optomechanical devices combine excellent optical and mechanical properties, allowing coherent conversion of information between optical and mechanical domains. Furthermore, they host colour centres that can function as long-lived quantum memories and qubits. By creating precisely engineered diamond optical cavities that also support low loss mechanical resonances, we have succeeded in both reversibly storing information in diamond optomechanical devices, and in optomechanically controlling diamond spin qubits. This talk will review both the fabrication and experimental challenges that needed to be overcome to realize these goals and will discuss on-going efforts to create diamond optomechanical crystal devices.

We have designed and implemented a compact, cost-efficient miniaturised light-sheet microscopy system based on optical microelectromechanical systems scanners and tunable lenses. The system occupies a footprint of 20 × 28 × 13 cm3 and combines off-the-shelf optics and optomechanics with 3D-printed structural and optical elements, and an economically costed objective lens, excitation laser and camera. All-optical volume scanning enables imaging of 435 × 232 × 60 µm3 volumes with 0.25 vps (volumes per second) and minimum lateral and axial resolution of 1.0 µm and 3.8 µm respectively. An open-top geometry allows imaging of samples on flat bottomed holders, allowing integration with microfluidic devices, multi-well plates and slide mounted samples, with applications envisaged in biomedical research and pre-clinical settings.

As digital pathology advances, systems for acquiring Whole Slide Images (WSI) need to become affordable and effective. Current research is majorly reported around the low-throughput stop-and-focus imaging systems that are too slow for clinical use. This work reports a system that acquires well focused images at a high throughput. It reduces the imaging time by an order of magnitude via the carefully engineered implementation of a global shutter camera which allows continuous motion imaging. The second challenge of maintaining good focus comes from three sources: the imperfections induced by low-cost optomechanics, smear surface undulations, and irregularity of the slide surface itself. These are minimized via a tiled-scan method supported by focal mapping, which predicts and achieves best focus on-the-fly. Finally, any remnant defocus is compensated for by a post-acquisition image enhancement method which sharpens the image without disturbing the essential features and color tones. Thus, this system delivers a 15 × 15 $mm^{2}$ scan in about 3 minutes at a resolution of 0.78 $\mu m$ with a 40x microscopy objective. The bill of material cost is about US $1300 and hence it would be beneficial for telepathology in resource-constrained scenarios. Also, this device can serve as an enabler of Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning algorithms to provide fully automated diagnosis. The developed codes for post-acquisition image enhancement are available at https://github.com/navchetan-awasthi/Microscopy .

The design and engineering of photonic architectures, suitable to enhance, collect and guide light on chip is needed for applications in quantum photonics and quantum optomechanics. In this work, a Faraday cage-based oblique angle etch method is applied to fabricate various functional photonic devices from 4H Silicon Carbide (SiC)—a material that has attracted attention in recent years, due to its potential in optomechanics, nonlinear optics, and quantum information. The processing conditions are detailed and the geometrical and optical characteristics of the fabricated devices are thoroughly addressed. Employing photoluminescence measurements high-quality factors are demonstrated for suspended microring resonators of up to 3500 in the visible range. Such devices will be applicable in the future to augment the properties of SiC in integrated on chip quantum photonics.

In this paper we consider a cavity optomechanics consists of a two-level atom that interacts with a single-mode quantized field in the presence of a strong driving laser. By evaluating the effective Hamiltonian of the whole system which contains the field dissipation, we derive the time-dependent state vector of the system corresponding to particular initial conditions for the cavity field and oscillatory mirror. In the continuation, we pay our attention to the dynamical properties of the considered system by choosing different initial conditions for the atom. In particular, the effects of amplitude of the pump field, various initial atomic states and cavity loss rate on the entanglement, atomic population inversion and photon and phonon statistical properties are numerically analysed. According to the obtained results, maximal entanglement for all chosen initial states of the system is visible as time develops. Moreover, the presence of dissipative field leads to decrease the entanglement and finally tends to a fixed positive value, while the Mandel parameter as well as the population inversion reduce and tend to a fixed value in the negative region. Also, the appearance of non-classicality feature such as typical collapse–revival phenomenon in the (negative values of) Mandel parameter is noticeable.

The photonic devices play a key role in optical communication networks and quantum networks. Here we analyze an optomechanical coupling between levitated nano-mechanical resonator and a nitrogen-vacancy(NV) center that exhibits a giant enhanced nonlinearity. Then we propose an experimentally accessible optical switch scheme at the single-photon level due to the optomechanically induced Kerr effect and show the pump power for the switch is reduced to 1 0 − 19 W. This is a promising device for future optomechanics-based photonic quantum computing and quantum networks.

Arrays of elongated nanoscale structures with suitable optical and mechanical properties can act as probes of numerous physical processes at the nanoscale, with applications in, for example, high-r...

Students built two laser beam profilers to measure several laser beam parameters in a university third-year instrumental chemistry laboratory using commercially available optical components used in modern optics research laboratories. While learning about practical properties of laser beams, students utilize laboratory grade optics and optomechanics for precise measurements of the laser beam quality factor, ellipticity, and diameter. Students build and troubleshoot beam profilers using two methods: the classic knife-edge technique as well as by employing a CMOS-based camera. Students recognize the sources of error associated with their constructed profiler, including background intensity, integration time, and lens alignment accuracy when measuring the beam parameters.

Interfacing nanomechanics with photonics and charge/spin-based electronics has transformed information technology and facilitated fundamental searches for the quantum-to-classical transition1–3. Utilizing the electron valley degree of freedom as an information carrier, valleytronics has recently emerged as a promising platform for developments in computation and communication4–7. Thus far, explorations of valleytronics have focused on optoelectronic and magnetic means8–16. Here, we realize valley–mechanical coupling in a resonator made of the monolayer semiconductor MoS2 and transduce valley information into mechanical states. The coupling is achieved by exploiting the magnetic moment of valley carriers with a magnetic field gradient. We optically populate the valleys and observe the resulting mechanical actuation using laser interferometry. We are thus able to control the valley–mechanical interaction by adjusting the pump-laser light, the magnetic field gradient and temperature. Our work paves the way for realizing valley-actuated devices and hybrid valley quantum systems. Transduction of valley information to mechanical states in a monolayer MoS2 resonator can be realized by optically pumping the valley carriers and applying an out-of-plane magnetic field gradient to induce a displacement-dependent valley splitting.

We theoretically investigate the nonlinear optical phenomena including optical bistability and four-wave mixing (FWM) process in a composite photonic-molecule cavity optomechanical system. The photonic-molecule cavity consisted of two whispering gallery mode (WGM) microcavities, where one WGM cavity is an optomechanical cavity with high-cavity dissipation κ and the other WGM cavity is an auxiliary ordinary optical cavity with high-quality factor (Q). Controlling the parameters of the system, such as the coupling strength J between the two cavities, the decay rate ratio δ of the two cavities, and the pump power P, the optical bistability can be controlled. Furthermore, the FWM process which presents the normal mode-splitting is also investigated in the FWM spectrum under different parameter regimes. Our study may provide a further insight of nonlinear phenomena in the composite photonic-molecule optomechanic systems.

The manipulation of mechanical response in optomechanical system allows observation of quantum behavior by cooling a mechanical resonance to its quantum mechanical ground state, and it relies on the effective tuning of trapping potentials. In this paper, we investigate the conversion process between radiation pressure and mechanical trapping potential that is engineered by the optical field in an optomechanical system. Moreover, a set of trapping potentials could be achieved by tuning the system, such as detuning, pumping power, and decay rates. Specifically, the speed of conversion between different potential states is studied, which approaches the megahertz level.

We fabricated and characterized suspended bi-layered photonic crystal slabs in AlGaAs heterostructures. Our approach allows to create integrated, closely spaced membranes, which can exhibit photonic bound states in the continuum to increase light-matter interaction.

In this contribution, we will show how nanophotonic structures can be used to gain access to previously inaccessible regimes in cavity optomechanics [1] . We introduce a novel optomechanics platform, built from two photonic crystal membranes [2] , one of which is freely suspended (see Fig. 1 ). This cavity supports a series of photonic bound states in the continuum (BICs) that, in principle, trap light forever [3] and can be favourably used together with evanescent coupling for realizing various types of optomechanical couplings, such as linear or quadratic coupling of either dispersive or dissipative type, by tuning the photonic crystal patterning and cavity length. By combining light propagation in both free-space (between the photonic-crystal membranes) and guided-mode (over the photonic-crystal membranes) form, our platform merges the strengths offered by in-plane and out-of-plane optomechanical systems.

Thanks to their versatility, photonic systems are very promising platforms for exploring topological physics beyond what is physically reachable in solid-state crystals [1] . In this sense, lattices of semiconductor microcavities confining exciton-polaritons, an hybrid quasi-particle formed from the strong coupling of optical photons and quantum well excitons, offer many advantages. For example, their intrinsic non-hermitian nature allows for probing specific topological properties efficiently and without relying on complex schemes.

Cavity optomechanical systems are useful to explore fundamental properties of mechanical and optical resonators. Relying on the strong nonlinearities naturally existing in these multitimescale systems, the use of non-trivial excitation reveals to be a key to explore new dynamics regimes. Recently, it has been experimentally demonstrated that accurate quantum thermometry is achievable in a coherently modulated optomechanical resonator in the resolved sideband regime., peer-reviewed

Synthetic gauge fields can be harnessed to engineer unconventional transport and localization of energy by breaking time-reversal symmetry. Nano-optomechanical systems combine photonics with mechanics to address mechanical modes via (modulated) radiation pressure and read-out motion optically. Optomechanical cavities, such as those formed by nanofabricated strings that vibrate like strings on a guitar, allow optical tuning of the spring constant and the realization of strong effective interactions between phononic modes that imprint nonreciprocal Peierls phases – akin to the Aharonov-Bohm effect for electrons [1] . Furthermore, parametric driving induces non-Hermitian dynamics and allow the engineering of gain and loss.

This digest paper reports on the demonstration of a hybrid system consisting of a silicon carbide (SiC) microdisk cavity and a hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN) nanomechanical resonator. Strong mechanical coupling between the constituents is revealed in both optical interferometry measurements and finite element method (FEM) simulations, even with the thickness of h-BN scaled down to a few atomic layers. Numerical computations assess that the hybrid device will lead to an improvement of vacuum coupling rate by 454 Hz (∼47%) at the h-BN thickness of 36 nm, compared to the bare SiC microdisk. Understanding of the nanomechanical properties facilitates design and implementation of SiC/h-BN hybrid systems and opens a new door to coherent transduction between optics and mechanics on this platform.