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Updated: Jul 17, 2026

Fabrication and Testing of Microfluidic Optomechanical Oscillators
Published on: May 29, 2014
Radiation pressure cooling of a micromechanical oscillator using dynamical backaction
A Schliesser1, P Del'Haye, N Nooshi
1Max Planck Institut für Quantenoptik, 85748 Garching, Germany.
Abstract:
Cooling of a 58 MHz micromechanical resonator from room temperature to 11 K is demonstrated using cavity enhanced radiation pressure. Detuned pumping of an optical resonance allows enhancement of the blueshifted motional sideband (caused by the oscillator's Brownian motion) with respect to the redshifted sideband leading to cooling of the mechanical oscillator mode. The reported cooling mechanism is a manifestation of the effect of radiation pressure induced dynamical backaction. These results constitute an important step towards achieving ground state cooling of a mechanical oscillator.
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