Electro-mechanical Casimir effect
Journal article, 2018

The dynamical Casimir effect is an intriguing phenomenon in which photons are generated from vacuum due to a non-adiabatic change in some boundary conditions. In particular, it connects the motion of an accelerated mechanical mirror to the generation of photons. While pioneering experiments demonstrating this effect exist, a conclusive measurement involving a mechanical generation is still missing. We show that a hybrid system consisting of a piezoelectric mechanical resonator coupled to a superconducting cavity may allow to electro-mechanically generate measurable photons from vacuum, intrinsically associated to the dynamical Casimir effect. Such an experiment may be achieved with current technology, based on film bulk acoustic resonators directly coupled to a superconducting cavity. Our results predict a measurable photon generation rate, which can he further increased through additional improvements such as using superconducting metamaterials.

Author

Mikel Sanz

University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU)

Witlef Wieczorek

Chalmers, Microtechnology and Nanoscience (MC2), Quantum Technology

Simon Groblacher

Delft University of Technology

Enrique Solano

Basque Foundation for Science (Ikerbasque)

Shanghai University

University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU)

Quantum

2521327X (eISSN)

Vol. 2

Areas of Advance

Nanoscience and Nanotechnology

Subject Categories

Atom and Molecular Physics and Optics

Other Electrical Engineering, Electronic Engineering, Information Engineering

DOI

10.22331/q-2018-09-03-91

More information

Latest update

4/21/2023