Isaac Storch

Photothermal Self-Oscillation and Laser Cooling of Graphene Optomechanical Systems

By virtue of their low mass and stiffness, atomically thin mechanical resonators are attractive candidates for use in optomechanics. Here, we demonstrate photothermal back-action in a graphene mechanical resonator comprising one end of a Fabry-Perot cavity. As a demonstration of the utility of this effect, we show that a continuous wave laser can be used to cool a graphene vibrational mode or to power a graphene-based tunable frequency oscillator. Owing to graphenes high thermal conductivity and optical absorption, photothermal optomechanics is efficient in graphene and could ultimately enable laser cooling to the quantum ground state or applications such as photonic signal processing.

Tunable phonon-cavity coupling in graphene membranes

A major achievement of the past decade has been the realization of macroscopic quantum systems by exploiting the interactions between optical cavities and mechanical resonators. In these systems, phonons are coherently annihilated or created in exchange for photons. Similar phenomena have recently been observed through phonon-cavity coupling-energy exchange between the modes of a single system mediated by intrinsic material nonlinearity. This has so far been demonstrated primarily for bulk crystalline, high-quality-factor (Q > 10(5)) mechanical systems operated at cryogenic temperatures. Here, we propose graphene as an ideal candidate for the study of such nonlinear mechanics. The large elastic modulus of this material and capability for spatial symmetry breaking via electrostatic forces is expected to generate a wealth of nonlinear phenomena, including tunable intermodal coupling. We have fabricated circular graphene membranes and report strong phonon-cavity effects at room temperature, despite the modest Q factor (∼100) of this system. We observe both amplification into parametric instability (mechanical lasing) and the cooling of Brownian motion in the fundamental mode through excitation of cavity sidebands. Furthermore, we characterize the quenching of these parametric effects at large vibrational amplitudes, offering a window on the all-mechanical analogue of cavity optomechanics, where the observation of such effects has proven elusive.

Simultaneous electrical and optical readout of graphene-coated high Q silicon nitride resonators

Resonant mechanics of high quality factor (Q) graphene coated silicon nitride devices have been explored using optical and electrical transduction schemes. With the addition of the graphene layer, we retain the desirable mechanical properties of silicon nitride but utilize the electrical and optical properties of graphene to transduce and tune the resonant motion by both optical and electrical means. By positioning the graphene-on-silicon-nitride drums in a tunable optical cavity, we observe position dependent damping and resonant frequency control of the devices due to optical absorption by graphene.

Temperature-dependence of stress and elasticity in wet-transferred graphene membranes

We report measurements of the mechanical properties of two suspended graphene membranes in the temperature range of 80 K to 550 K. For this entire range, the resonant frequency and quality factor of each device were monitored continuously during cooling and heating. Below 300 K, we have additionally measured the resonant frequencys tunability via electrostatic force, and modeled this data to determine graphenes tension and elastic modulus; both of these parameters are found to be strongly temperature-dependent in this range. Above 300 K, we observe a resonant frequency (and therefore tension) minimum near room temperature. This suggests that the thermal expansion coefficient is positive for temperatures below roughly 315 K, and negative for higher temperatures. Lastly, we observe a large, reproducible hysteresis in the resonant frequency as our graphene devices are cycled between 300 K and 550 K. After returning to 300 K, the measured frequency evolves exponentially in time with a time constant of ∼24 h...