NanoOptoMechanics in classical and quantum Liquids

Project Information

NOMLI

Grant agreement ID: 770933

DOI

10.3030/770933

Project closed

EC signature date 9 March 2018

Start date 1 April 2018

End date 31 March 2025

Funded under

• EXCELLENT SCIENCE - European Research Council (ERC)

Total cost

€ 2 292 068,28

EU contribution

€ 2 292 068,00

Coordinated by

CENTRE NATIONAL DE LA RECHERCHE SCIENTIFIQUE CNRS
France

Periodic Reporting for period 5 - NOMLI (NanoOptoMechanics in classical and quantum Liquids)

Reporting period: 2024-04-01 to 2025-03-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

The ERC NOMLI project has been exploring nanoscale optomechanical systems evolving in liquids. This research was at the frontier of condensed matter, fluidics, optics, quantum physics, biophysics, engineering and nanotechnology.

Now established as a class of elementary quantum systems on their own, optomechanical resonators have recently pushed our capabilities to probe forces with higher sensitivity and time resolution, at the quantum limit of detection. In NOMLI, we used these capabilities to explore physical interactions in complex environments such as liquids and artificial fluids, or in interaction with biological objects, answering open questions in all these contexts.

Outputs of the project have been in basic science (polaritonic effects in optomechanics) but also in more practical fields, with the development of a micro-rheology method that enables characterizing very tiny liquid amounts and reveal their background viscosity. Biomedical application of this method is currently explored for diagnosis. More generally, NOMLI has established instruments and measurement protocols to gain in sensitivity and time-resolution using optomechanical probes that measure these complex physical systems. This has led to new instruments for biophysics and atomic force spectroscopy, which will impact on the elucidation of micro-biological processes.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

Along the project, nano-optomechanics experiments at ultra-low temperature were developed, where the quantum regime of motion has been attained, and where force sensing experiments were implemented. A novel class of nano-optomechanical resonators was developed to establish an interface with artificial quantum fluids formed at low temperature, leading to the observation of polaritonic effects in optomechanics. Optomechanical experiments were run in classical liquids at room-temperature, and confronted to new hydrodynamic models adapted to optomechanical geometries. This led to the observation of non-Newtonian behaviors in common alcohols. Nano-optomechanical devices were put in interaction with micro-biological objects, such as a living cell in a physiological liquid, in order to gain resolution in biophysical measurements. Theoretical predictions were made on optomechanical phonon transport, polaritonic optomechanical forces, and learning strategies for microwave signals, which all rely on collective optomechanical effects.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

The NOMLI project has produced outputs beyond the state of the art in several domains. Here is a selection:
1. a new micro-rheology method operating in the ultra-high frequency range, offering high-throughput characterization of small liquid samples;
2. the answer, with real-time observation, to the question of the evaporation mode of a nanoscale droplet;
3. a method to resolve sub-microseconds processes in a living cell;
4. an ultra-low temperature optomechanics set-up compatible with atomic force measurements;
5. the observation of whispering gallery polaritons and of their effect on optomechanical interactions.

A nano-optomechanical resonator beneath a breaking wave