arXiv:1105.0281 · Physical Review A
Atom-membrane cooling and entanglement using cavity electromagnetically induced transparency
Claudiu Genes, Helmut Ritsch, Michael Drewsen, Aurélien Dantan
Abstract
We investigate a hybrid optomechanical system composed of a micromechanical oscillator as a movable membrane and an atomic three-level ensemble within an optical cavity. We show that a suitably tailored cavity field response via electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) in the atomic medium allows for strong coupling of the membrane's mechanical oscillations to the collective atomic ground-state spin. This facilitates ground-state cooling of the membrane motion, quantum state mapping, and robust atom-membrane entanglement even for cavity widths larger than the mechanical resonance frequency.