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Updated: May 24, 2026

Fabrication of Surface Acoustic Wave Devices on Lithium Niobate
Published on: June 18, 2020
Coupling of a Nuclear Transition to a Surface Acoustic Wave
Albert Nazeeri1, Chiara Brandenstein1, Chengjie Jia1
1Stanford University, Department of Physics, Stanford, California 94305, USA.
None:
Mechanical modulation of recoilless nuclear transitions allows the dynamic control of γ-ray emission and absorption. Accessing modulation frequencies well above the nuclear linewidth enables coherent manipulation of the nuclear response. Here we demonstrate high-frequency control via efficient coupling of a film of enriched ^{57}Fe to a 97.9 MHz surface acoustic wave, nearly 2 orders of magnitude higher than the nuclear linewidth. The mechanical drive produces a comb of absorption sidebands in the Mössbauer spectrum, reflecting the periodic time modulation of the nuclear transitions. This constitutes the highest frequency mechanically driven Mössbauer resonance to date. Our solid-state, monolithic platform establishes a new interface between nuclear transitions and high-frequency acoustics, with applications in γ-ray quantum optics and precision nuclear spectroscopy.
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