Silicon nitride membrane resonators at millikelvin temperatures with quality factors exceeding 10^8

We study the mechanical dissipation of the fundamental mode of millimeter-sized, high quality-factor (Q) metalized silicon nitride membranes at temperatures down to 14?mK using a three-dimensional optomechanical cavity. Below 200?mK, high-Q modes of the membranes show a diverging increase of Q with decreasing temperature, reaching Q=1.27×108Q=1...

Strain-dependent damping in nanomechanical resonators from thin MoS2 crystals

We investigate the effect of mechanical strain on the dynamics of thin MoS2 nanodrum resonators. Using a piezoelectric crystal, compressive and tensile biaxial strain is induced in initially flat and buckled devices. In the flat device, we observe a remarkable strain-dependence of the resonance line width, while the change in the resonance...

Reducing intrinsic loss in superconducting resonators by surface treatment and deep etching of silicon substrates

We present microwave-frequency NbTiN resonators on silicon, systematically achieving internal quality factors above 1?M in the quantum regime. We use two techniques to reduce losses associated with two-level systems: an additional substrate surface treatment prior to NbTiN deposition to optimize the metal-substrate interface and deep reactive...

Bouncing surface plasmons

Employing an interferometric cavity ring-down technique we study the launching, propagation and reflection of surface plasmons on a smooth gold-air interface that is intersected by two parallel, subwavelength wide slits. Inside the low-finesse optical cavity defined by these slits the surface plasmon is observed to make multiple bounces. Our...