Periodic Reporting for period 1 - SQZOMS (Squeezed Light Enhancement of Optomechanical Systems)
Reporting period: 2015-09-15 to 2017-09-14
Advancements over the last quarter-century have led to moving-mirror interferometric experiments obtaining the most sensitive displacement measurements to date, with sensitivities of better than a few-millionths of the diameter of a nucleus. In such experiments, even if technical noise has been reduced, quantum noise sources are still present. The objectives of this project were to push the sensitivity of such devices to the quantum-noise limit, and then further beyond through the use of specialized light sources called squeezed light sources. This is of keen interest to the rapidly expanding fields of precision measurement and quantum information processing.
The project has first resulted in a cryogenically-cooled macroscopic moving-mirror device approaching the quantum-noise limit (shown in the left figure), of which publications are in journal review. As part of this work, a new control system architecture was developed for the experiment, that allows flexibility and robustness for control system implementation, with changeable control functions in an in-house developed graphical-user-interface. The Advanced Beta version of this architecture was made publicly downloadable and available for scientific research use. The second result of the project saw the full design and construction of a squeezed light source (shown in the right figure) that is fully compatible with coupling to the macroscopic moving-mirror device experiment. This included characterization and verification of component subsystems, as well as implementation of the same control system architecture. The progress and results of the project have been presented at meetings (such as JMC15 “Optomechanics Colloquium” 2016) and outreach events (such ENS Open Night 2017 Precision Measurement)
The project result of the cryogenically-cooled macroscopic moving-mirror device has pushed the approach towards the quantum-noise limit in such systems as has never been achieved before. The specialized squeezed source has the capability to push even further. Possible potential application pathways range from novel high-bandwidth, thermal-noise-free mechanical sensing devices to tests of quantum theory and quantum measurement theory itself.