Diamond optomechanical crystals

TLDR

Single‑crystal diamond offers low mechanical dissipation, wide optical transparency, and atom‑like NV and SiV centers, making it an attractive platform for cavity‑optomechanical systems and motivating hybrid quantum devices that couple diamond spins to phonons via lattice strain. This work demonstrates diamond optomechanical crystals that enable coupling of an optical cavity field to a mechanical mode via radiation pressure, aiming to realize hybrid quantum systems. The device co‑localizes ~200 THz photons and few‑to‑10 GHz phonons in a quasi‑periodic diamond nanostructure, producing radiation‑pressure coupling between the optical cavity and mechanical mode. Diamond OMCs in the resolved‑sideband regime achieve >10^5 intracavity photons, cooperativity ≈20 at room temperature, and enable observation of optomechanically induced.

Abstract

Cavity-optomechanical systems realized in single-crystal diamond are poised to benefit from its extraordinary material properties, including low mechanical dissipation and a wide optical transparency window. Diamond is also rich in optically active defects, such as the nitrogen-vacancy (NV) and silicon-vacancy (SiV) centers, which behave as atom-like systems in the solid state. Predictions and observations of coherent coupling of the NV electronic spin to phonons via lattice strain has motivated the development of diamond nanomechanical devices aimed at realization of hybrid quantum systems, in which phonons provide an interface with diamond spins. In this work, we demonstrate diamond optomechanical crystals (OMCs), a device platform to enable such applications, wherein the co-localization of ~ 200 THz photons and few to 10 GHz phonons in a quasi-periodic diamond nanostructure leads to coupling of an optical cavity field to a mechanical mode via radiation pressure. In contrast to other material systems, diamond OMCs operating in the resolved-sideband regime possess large intracavity photon capacity (> 10$^5$) and sufficient optomechanical coupling rates to reach a cooperativity of ~ 20 at room temperature, allowing for the observation of optomechanically induced transparency and the realization of large amplitude optomechanical self-oscillations.