Optomechanical Microcavity Packaging

Abstract

For the quantum optomechanics research, the mechanical oscillator needs to be cooled to ground state in a cryostat or vacuum chamber, which can also improve the Q factors of the mechanical modes. However, stable 3D optical stages are required to hold the microresonator-taper coupling system to keep and adjust the air gap between them and, thus, give rise to experiment difficulties in a relatively small vacuum chamber or cryostat. To address this issue, an efficient method to package a coupled silica microsphere and tapered fiber system is proposed and demonstrated experimentally. For the purpose of optomechanical studies, high-quality-factor optical and mechanical modes are maintained after the packaging process. For the mounted microsphere, the coupling system is more stable and compact and, thus, is beneficial for future studies and applications based on optomechanical interactions. Especially, the packaged optomechanical system, which is tested in a vacuum chamber, paves the way toward quantum optomechanics research in cryostat.