arXiv · 2310.18828
Kerr-Enhanced Optical Spring
Abstract
We propose and experimentally demonstrate the generation of enhanced optical springs using the optical Kerr effect. A nonlinear optical crystal is inserted into a Fabry-Perot cavity with a movable mirror, and a chain of second-order nonlinear optical effects in the phase-mismatched condition induces the Kerr effect. The optical spring constant is enhanced by a factor of $1.6\pm0.1$ over linear theory. To our knowledge, this is the first realization of optomechanical coupling enhancement using a nonlinear optical effect, which has been theoretically investigated to overcome the performance limitations of linear optomechanical systems. The tunable nonlinearity of demonstrated system has a wide range of potential applications, from observing gravitational waves emitted by binary neutron star post-merger remnants to cooling macroscopic oscillators to their quantum ground state.
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Sotatsu Otabe, Wataru Usukura, Kaido Suzuki, Kentaro Komori, Yuta Michimura, Ken-ichi Harada, Kentaro Somiya. 2023-10-28. Kerr-Enhanced Optical Spring. https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevlett.132.143602
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