High-sensitivity three-mode optomechanical transducer

Three-mode optomechanical interactions have been predicted to allow the creation of very high sensitivity transducers in which very strong optical self-cooling and strong optomechanical quantum entanglement are predicted. Strong coupling is achieved by engineering a transducer in which both the pump laser and a single signal sideband frequency are resonantly enhanced. Here we demonstrate that very high sensitivity can be achieved in a very simple system consisting of a Fabry-Perot cavity with CO ₂ laser thermal tuning. We demonstrate a displacement sensitivity of ∼1×10 ^-17m/ √Hz, which is sufficient to observe a thermally excited acoustic mode in a 5.6 kg sapphire mirror with a signal-to-noise ratio of more than 20 dB. It is shown that a measurement sensitivity of ∼2×10 ^-20m/√Hz limited by the quantum shot noise is achievable with optimization of the cavity parameters.