Coherent Coupling between Phonons, Magnons, and Photons

TLDR

Mechanical degrees of freedom, often overlooked in quantum systems, have been explored for quantum information processing and sensing applications. The authors develop a hybrid platform comprising a magnomechanical cavity and an optomechanical cavity that are coherently coupled by direct physical contact. Phonons in the system are manipulated via magnetostrictive interaction or optically through radiation pressure within the coupled cavities. They demonstrate microwave‑to‑optical conversion with a 3 GHz tuning range, observe cancellation of optically driven mechanical motion by microwave‑driven motion, and show that dual magnonic and photonic control of phonons enables versatile signal transduction among optical, microwave, mechanical, and magnetic domains.

Abstract

Mechanical degrees of freedom, which have often been overlooked in various quantum systems, have been studied for applications ranging from quantum information processing to sensing. Here, we develop a hybrid platform consisting of a magnomechanical cavity and an optomechanical cavity, which are coherently coupled by the straightway physical contact. The phonons in the system can be manipulated either with the magnetostrictive interaction or optically through the radiation pressure. Together with mechanical state preparation and sensitive readout, we demonstrate the microwave-to-optical conversion with an ultrawide tuning range up to 3 GHz. In addition, we observe a mechanical motion interference effect, in which the optically driven mechanical motion is canceled by the microwave-driven coherent motion. Manipulating mechanical oscillators with equal facility through both magnonic and photonic channels enables new architectures for signal transduction between the optical, microwave, mechanical, and magnetic fields.