{"id":169644,"date":"2023-08-14T00:22:38","date_gmt":"2023-08-14T05:22:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2023\/08\/a-quantum-leap-in-mechanical-oscillator-technology"},"modified":"2023-08-14T00:22:38","modified_gmt":"2023-08-14T05:22:38","slug":"a-quantum-leap-in-mechanical-oscillator-technology","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2023\/08\/a-quantum-leap-in-mechanical-oscillator-technology","title":{"rendered":"A quantum leap in mechanical oscillator technology"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/a-quantum-leap-in-mechanical-oscillator-technology2.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Over the past decade, scientists have made tremendous progress in generating quantum phenomena in mechanical systems. What seemed impossible only fifteen years ago has now become a reality, as researchers successfully create quantum states in macroscopic mechanical objects.<\/p>\n<p>By coupling these mechanical oscillators to light photons\u2014known as \u201coptomechanical systems\u201d\u2014scientists have been able to cool them down to their lowest energy level close to the <a href=\"https:\/\/phys.org\/tags\/quantum+limit\/\" rel=\"tag\" class=\"\">quantum limit<\/a>, \u201csqueeze them\u201d to reduce their vibrations even further, and entangle them with each other. These advancements have opened up new opportunities in <a href=\"https:\/\/phys.org\/tags\/quantum+sensing\/\" rel=\"tag\" class=\"\">quantum sensing<\/a>, compact storage in quantum computing, fundamental tests of quantum gravity, and even in the search for dark matter.<\/p>\n<p>In order to efficiently operate optomechanical systems in the quantum regime, scientists face a dilemma. On one hand, the mechanical oscillators must be properly isolated from their environment to minimize <a href=\"https:\/\/phys.org\/tags\/energy+loss\/\" rel=\"tag\" class=\"\">energy loss<\/a>; on the other hand, they must be well-coupled to other <a href=\"https:\/\/phys.org\/tags\/physical+systems\/\" rel=\"tag\" class=\"\">physical systems<\/a> such as electromagnetic resonators to control them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Over the past decade, scientists have made tremendous progress in generating quantum phenomena in mechanical systems. What seemed impossible only fifteen years ago has now become a reality, as researchers successfully create quantum states in macroscopic mechanical objects. By coupling these mechanical oscillators to light photons\u2014known as \u201coptomechanical systems\u201d\u2014scientists have been able to cool them [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":427,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1523,33,1617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-169644","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-computing","category-cosmology","category-quantum-physics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169644","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/427"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=169644"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169644\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=169644"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=169644"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=169644"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}