Physicists at URegensburg Present Important Step Toward a Nanomechanical Quantum Switchboard

(Phys.org) Physicists at Universität Regensburg have coupled the vibrations of a macromolecule—a carbon nanotube—to a microwave cavity, creating a novel and highly miniaturized optomechanical system. The team of Dr. Andreas K. Hüttel achieved this by using the quantization of the electrical charge. They present an important step towards combining completely different quantum technologies, as, e.g., electron spin qubits and superconducting qubits, in one device.
Dr. Hüttel, currently on a research stay at Aalto University, Finland explained, “Optomechanical interaction can be used for cooling of the vibration, for detecting it in a highly sensitive way, for amplification of signals, or even for arbitrary preparation of quantum states. Our results indicate that quantum control of the string-like nanotube vibration will be reachable in the near future. And that makes it very attractive as a kind of quantum switchboard, combining very different quantum phenomena.”