Cavity Optomechanics with Stoichiometric SiN Films

Abstract

We study high-stress SiN films for reaching the quantum regime with mesoscopic oscillators connected to a room-temperature thermal bath, for which there are stringent requirements on the oscillators' quality factors and frequencies. Our SiN films support mechanical modes with unprecedented products of mechanical quality factor Q_m and frequency ν_m reaching Q_(m)ν_(m) ≃ 2 × 10¹³ Hz. The SiN membranes exhibit a low optical absorption characterized by Im(n) ≲ 10⁻⁵ at 935 nm, representing a 15 times reduction for SiN membranes. We have developed an apparatus to simultaneously cool the motion of multiple mechanical modes based on a short, high-finesse Fabry-Perot cavity and present initial cooling results along with future possibilities.

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