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Dirk Bouwmeester

Publications and source records attributed to Dirk Bouwmeester.

8 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed2006

Sub-kelvin optical cooling of a micromechanical resonator.

Micromechanical resonators, when cooled down to near their ground state, can be used to explore quantum effects such as superposition and entanglement at a macroscopic scale. Previously, it has been proposed to use electronic feedback to cool a high frequency (10 MHz) resonator to near its ground state. In other work, a low frequency resonator was cooled from room temperature to 18 K by passive optical feedback. Additionally, active optical feedback of atomic force microscope cantilevers has been used to modify their response characteristics, and cooling to approximately 2 K has been measured. Here we demonstrate active optical feedback cooling to 135 +/- 15 mK of a micromechanical resonator integrated with a high-quality optical resonator. Additionally, we show that the scheme should be applicable at cryogenic base temperatures, allowing cooling to near the ground state that is required for quantum experiments--near 100 nK for a kHz oscillator.

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PubMed2006

High finesse opto-mechanical cavity with a movable thirty-micron-size mirror.

We report on the demonstration of a high finesse micro-optomechanical system and identify potential applications ranging from optical cooling to weak force detection to massive quantum superpositions. The system consists of a high quality diameter flat dielectric mirror cut from a larger substrate with a focused ion beam and attached to an atomic force microscope cantilever. Cavity ring-down measurements performed on a 25 mm long Fabry-Pérot cavity with the 30 microm mirror at one end show an optical finesse of 2100. Numerical calculations show that the finesse is not diffraction limited and that orders of magnitude higher finesse should be possible. A mechanical quality factor of more than 10(5) at pressures below 10(-3) mbar is demonstrated for the cantilever with a mirror attached.

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PubMed2006

Strong coupling between single photons in semiconductor microcavities.

We discuss the observability of strong coupling between single photons in semiconductor microcavities coupled by a chi2 nonlinearity. We present two schemes and analyze the feasibility of their practical implementation in three systems: photonic crystal defects, micropillars, and microdisks, fabricated out of GaAs. We show that, if a weak coherent state is used to enhance the chi2 interaction, the strong coupling regime between two modes at different frequencies occupied by a single photon is within reach of current technology. The unstimulated strong coupling of a single photon and a photon pair is very challenging and will require an improvement in mirocavity quality factors of 2-4 orders of magnitude to be observable.

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PubMed2005

Photon statistics from coupled quantum dots.

We present an optical study of two closely stacked self-assembled InAs/GaAs quantum dots. The energy spectrum and correlations between photons subsequently emitted from a single pair provide not only clear evidence of coupling between the quantum dots but also insight into the coupling mechanism. Our results are in agreement with recent theories predicting that tunneling is largely suppressed between nonidentical quantum dots and that the interaction is instead dominated by dipole-dipole coupling and phonon-assisted energy transfer processes.

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PubMed2005

Realization of Hardy's thought experiment with photons.

We present an experimental realization of Hardy's thought experiment [Phys. Rev. Lett. 68, 2981 (1992)], using photons. The experiment consists of a pair of Mach-Zehnder interferometers that interact through photon bunching at a beam splitter. A striking contradiction is created between the predictions of quantum mechanics and local hidden variables. The contradiction relies on nonmaximally entangled position states of two particles. A Clauser-Horne-type inequality is derived and violated.

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PubMed2004

Nonlinear photonic crystals as a source of entangled photons.

Nonlinear photonic crystals can be used to provide phase matching for frequency conversion in optically isotropic materials. The phase-matching mechanism proposed here is a combination of form birefringence and phase velocity dispersion in a periodic structure. Since the phase matching relies on the geometry of the photonic crystal, it becomes possible to use highly nonlinear materials. This is illustrated considering a one-dimensional periodic Al0.4Ga0.6As/air structure for the generation of 1.5 microm light. We show that phase-matching conditions used in schemes to create entangled photon pairs can be achieved in photonic crystals.

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PubMed2004

Optimal quantum cloning on a beam splitter.

We demonstrate how a beam splitter in combination with different light sources can be used as an optimal universal 1-->2 quantum cloner and as an optimal universal quantum NOT machine for the polarization qubit of a single photon. For the cloning a source of single photons with maximally mixed polarization is required and for the NOT operation a source of maximally entangled photon pairs. We demonstrate both operations with near optimal fidelity. Our scheme can be generalized in a natural way to clone and NOT the spin state of electrons.

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