Related Experiment Video
Updated: Dec 22, 2025

Cooling an Optically Trapped Ultracold Fermi Gas by Periodical Driving
Published on: March 30, 2017
Light-mediated strong coupling between a mechanical oscillator and atomic spins 1 meter apart
Thomas M Karg1, Baptiste Gouraud1, Chun Tat Ngai1
1Department of Physics and Swiss Nanoscience Institute, University of Basel, 4056 Basel, Switzerland.
Abstract:
Engineering strong interactions between quantum systems is essential for many phenomena of quantum physics and technology. Typically, strong coupling relies on short-range forces or on placing the systems in high-quality electromagnetic resonators, which restricts the range of the coupling to small distances. We used a free-space laser beam to strongly couple a collective atomic spin and a micromechanical membrane over a distance of 1 meter in a room-temperature environment. The coupling is highly tunable and allows the observation of normal-mode splitting, coherent energy exchange oscillations, two-mode thermal noise squeezing, and dissipative coupling. Our approach to engineering coherent long-distance interactions with light makes it possible to couple very different systems in a modular way, opening up a range of opportunities for quantum control and coherent feedback networks.
Related Concept Videos
Atomic Nuclei: Larmor Precession Frequency
Double Resonance Techniques: Overview
Spin decoupling is usually achieved by...
Spin–Spin Coupling Constant: Overview
Qualitatively, any spin plus-half nucleus polarizes the spins of its electrons to the minus-half state. Consequently, the paired electron in the hydrogen–carbon bond must...
Spin–Spin Coupling: One-Bond Coupling
Atomic Nuclei: Nuclear Relaxation Processes
NMR Spectroscopy: Spin–Spin Coupling

