To date, micro- and nano-scale optomechanical systems have enabled many proof-of-principle quantum operations through access to high-frequency (GHz) phonon modes that are readily cooled to their thermal ground state. However, minuscule amounts of absorbed light produce excessive heating that can jeopardize robust ground state operation within such microstructures. In contrast, we demonstrate an alternative strategy for accessing high-frequency (
13 GHz) phonons within macroscopic systems (cm-scale). Counterintuitively, we show that these macroscopic systems, with motional masses that are
>20 million times larger than those of micro-scale counterparts, offer a complementary path towards robust quantum operations. Utilizing bulk acoustic phonons to mediate resonant coupling between two distinct modes of an optical cavity, we demonstrate the ability to perform beam-splitter and entanglement operations at MHz rates on an array of phonon modes, opening doors to applications ranging from quantum memories and microwave-to-optical conversion to high-power laser oscillators.
Stimulated Brillouin scattering drives a coherent interaction between optical signals and acoustic phonons and this effect can be used for storing optical information in acoustic waves. An important consideration arises when multiple optical frequencies are simultaneously employed in the Brillouin process: in this case the acoustic phonons that are addressed by each optical wavelength can be separated by frequencies far smaller than the acoustic phonon linewidth, potentially leading to crosstalk between the optical modes. Here we extend the concept of Brillouin-based light storage to multiple wavelength channels. We experimentally and theoretically show that the accumulated phase mismatch over the length of the spatially extended phonons allows each optical wavelength channel to address a distinct phonon mode, ensuring negligible crosstalk, even if the phonons overlap in frequency. Moreover, we demonstrate that the strict phase matching condition enables the preservation of the coherence of the opto-acoustic transfer at closely spaced multiple acoustic frequencies. This particular phase-mismatch for broad-bandwidth pulses has far-reaching implications allowing dense wavelength multiplexing in Brillouin-based light storage, multi-frequency Brillouin sensing, multi-wavelength Brillouin lasers, parallel microwave processing and quantum photon-phonon interactions.
We propose how to generate the entanglement of two long-lived phonon modes in a circuit quantum acoustodynamics system, which consists of a multi-mode high-frequency bulk acoustic wave resonator and a transmon-type superconducting qubit. Two acoustic modes couple to the qubit through piezoelectric interaction, and the qubit is driven by a microwave field. Under the condition of far detuning between the qubit and acoustic modes, the qubit can be eliminated adiabatically, and thus establishing the indirect interaction between the two acoustic modes. We demonstrate that such the indirect interaction can be the parametric-amplification-type interaction by appropriately choosing the drive frequency and strength, so the entanglement between acoustic modes can be created by the direct unitary evolution. We numerically analyze the parameter conditions for generating the entanglement in detail and evaluate the influence of system dissipations and noise. The results show that the scheme can be realized using currently available parameters and has strong robustness against the dissipations and environmental temperature. This work may provide efficient resource for the quantum information processing based on the phononic systems.