Optomechanics (a brief review)

Florian Marquardt, S. M. Girvin

Published 2009-05-05Version 1

We review the emerging field of optomechanics, where the radiation pressure of light circulating inside an optical cavity is employed to cool, manipulate and read out micro- and nanomechanical oscillators. These systems display a rich classical nonlinear dynamics and can be used for sensitive detection. Once they are successfully cooled into the quantum ground state, they promise fundamental tests of quantum mechanics in a new regime.