A Gas Emission Setup to Evaluate Wideband Sub-mm Spectrometers: For Frequency Calibration and Long Integration Analysis

A gas-cell-based calibration setup was designed to evaluate the wideband response of sub-millimeter spectrometers like DESHIMA (DEep Spectroscopic High-redshift MApper). The use of low pressure gas emission spectra allowed for accurate calibration of the absolute frequency response, and to test the detectability of faint emission spectra with...

Design and low-temperature characterization of a tunable microcavity for diamond-based quantum networks

We report on the fabrication and characterization of a Fabry-Perot microcavity enclosing a thin diamond membrane at cryogenic temperatures. The cavity is designed to enhance resonant emission of single nitrogen-vacancy centers by allowing spectral and spatial tuning while preserving the optical properties observed in bulk diamond. We demonstrate...

Realization of high-Q/V photonic crystal cavities defined by an effective Aubry-André-Harper bichromatic potential

We report on the realization of high-Q/V photonic crystal cavities in thin silicon membranes, with resonances around 1.55 μm wavelength. The cavity designs are based on a recently proposed photonic crystal implementation of the Aubry-André-Harper bichromatic potential, defined from the superposition of two one-dimensional lattices with a non...

Full characterisation of a background limited antenna coupled KID over an octave of bandwidth for THz radiation

We present the design, fabrication, and full characterisation (sensitivity, beam pattern, and frequency response) of a background limited broadband antenna coupled kinetic inductance detector covering the frequency range from 1.4 to 2.8 THz. This device shows photon noise limited performance with a noise equivalent power of 2.5 × 10<sup>-19<...

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...

Silicon photonic micro-ring resonators to sense strain and ultrasound

We demonstrated that photonic micro-ring resonators can be used in micro-machined ultrasound microphones. This might cause a breakthrough in array transducers for ultrasonography; first because optical multiplexing allows array interrogation via one optical fiber and second because the silicon-on-insulator technology allows cost-effective...

Integrated silicon optofluidic ring resonator

The feasibility of an integrated silicon optofluidic ring resonator is demonstrated. Liquid core antiresonant reflecting optical waveguides are used to realize a rectangular ring resonator with a multimode interference liquid core coupler between the ring and the bus waveguide. In this configuration the same waveguide used to confine the light...

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...