Recently, a research group from College of Advanced Interdisciplinary Studies, National University of Defense Technology, collaborated with Hunan Normal University and other institutes to report a nonlinear mechanical harmonic phonon laser with a micro-size sphere, by introducing an optical gain. It will bring a revolution in quantum sensors, communication and information process. The research is published in Nature Physics, entitled "Nonlinear multi-frequency phonon lasers with active levitated optomechanics".
In the research, by introducing optical gain, they have realized a phonon laser on the fundamental mode with a three-order-of-magnitude enhancement in the power spectrum. The photon lifetime is thus increased to more than 1 μs. In addition, nonlinear mechanical harmonics can emerge spontaneously above the lasing threshold. These results push phonon lasers into the nonlinear regime and make many exciting applications more accessible, such as optomechanical combs, multi-frequency mechanical sensors and phonon information storage.
Lecturer Kuang Tengfang of National University of Defense Technology and Doctoral candidate Huang Ran from Hunan Normal University are first authors of the paper. Associate Professor Xiao Guangzong, Professor Luo Hui from National University of Defense Technology, Professor Jing Hui from Hunan Normal University and Professor Qiu Chengwei from National University of Singapore are corresponding authors. The research project is led by Associate Professor Xiao Guangzong.