Generating 10-GHz phonons in nanostructured silicon membrane optomechanical cavity

Jianhao Zhang; Xavier Le Roux; Miguel Montesinos-Ballester; Omar Ortiz; Delphine Marris-Morini; Eric Cassan; Laurent Vivien; Norberto Daniel Lanzillotti-Kimura; Carlos Alonso-Ramos

arXiv · 2103.14578

Generating 10-GHz phonons in nanostructured silicon membrane optomechanical cavity

Jianhao Zhang·Xavier Le Roux·Miguel Montesinos-Ballester·Omar Ortiz·Delphine Marris-Morini·Eric Cassan·Laurent Vivien·Norberto Daniel Lanzillotti-Kimura·Carlos Alonso-Ramos

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Abstract

Flexible control of photons and phonons in silicon nanophotonic waveguides is a key feature for emerging applications in communications, sensing and quantum technologies. Strong phonon leakage towards the silica under-cladding hampers optomechanical interactions in silicon-on-insulator. This limitation has been circumvented by totally or partially removing the silica under-cladding to form pedestal or silicon membrane waveguides. Remarkable optomechanical interactions have been demonstrated in silicon using pedestal strips, membrane ribs, and photonic/phononic crystal membrane waveguides. Still, the mechanical frequencies are limited to the 1-5 GHz range. Here, we exploit the periodic nanostructuration in Si membrane gratings to shape GHz phononic modes and near-infrared photonic modes, achieving ultrahigh mechanical frequency (10 GHz) and strong photon-phonon overlap (61.5%) simultaneously. Based on this concept, we experimentally demonstrate a one-dimension optomechanical micro-resonator with a high mechanical frequency of 10 GHz and a quality factor of 1000. These results were obtained at room temperature and ambient conditions with an intracavity optical power below 1 mW, illustrating the efficient optical driving of the mechanical mode enabled by the proposed approach.

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Jianhao Zhang, Xavier Le Roux, Miguel Montesinos-Ballester, Omar Ortiz, Delphine Marris-Morini, Eric Cassan, Laurent Vivien, Norberto Daniel Lanzillotti-Kimura, Carlos Alonso-Ramos. 2021-03-26. Generating 10-GHz phonons in nanostructured silicon membrane optomechanical cavity. https://arxiv.org/abs/2103.14578

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