No Arabic abstract
Dielectric resonators are employed to build state-of-the-art low-noise and high- stability oscillators operating at room and cryogenic temperatures. A resonator temperature coefficient of frequency is one criterion of performance. This paper reports on predictions and measurements of this temperature coefficient of frequency for three types of cylindrically-symmetric Bragg resonators operated at microwave frequencies. At room temperature, microwave Bragg resonators have the best potential to reach extremely high Q-factors. Research has been conducted over the last decade on modeling, optimizing and realizing such high Q-factor devices for applications such as filtering, sensing, and frequency metrology. We present an optimized design, which has a temperature sensitivity 2 to 4 times less than current whispering gallery mode resonators without using temperature compensating techniques and about 30% less than other existing Bragg resonators. Also, the performance of a new generation single-layered Bragg resonators, based on a hybrid-Bragg-mode, is reported with a sensitivity of about -12ppm/K at 295K. For a single reflector resonator, it achieves a similar level of performance as a double-Bragg-reflector resonator but with a more compact structure and performs six times better than whispering-gallery-mode resonators. The hybrid resonator promises to deliver a new generation of high-sensitivity sensors and high-stability room-temperature oscillators.
Photon detection with quantum-level sensitivity is particularly challenging in the terahertz regime (0.1-10 THz), which contains ~98% of all the photons existing in the universe. Near-quantum-limited terahertz spectrometry has so far only been possible through the use of cryogenically cooled superconducting mixers as frequency downconverters. Here we introduce a spectrometry scheme that uses plasmonic photomixing for frequency downconversion to offer quantum-level sensitivities at room temperature for the first time. Frequency downconversion is achieved by mixing terahertz radiation and a heterodyning optical beam with a terahertz beat frequency in a plasmonics-enhanced semiconductor active region. We demonstrate spectrometer sensitivities down to 3 times the quantum-limit at room temperature. With a versatile design capable of broadband spectrometry, this plasmonic photomixer has broad applicability to quantum optics, chemical sensing, biological studies, medical diagnosis, high data-rate communication, as well as astronomy and atmospheric studies.
Vibrating nano- and micromechanical resonators have been the subject of research aiming at ultrasensitive mass sensors for mass spectrometry, chemical analysis and biomedical diagnosis. Unfortunately, their merits diminish dramatically in liquids due to dissipative mechanisms like viscosity and acoustic losses. A push towards faster and lighter miniaturized nanodevices would enable improved performances, provided dissipation was controlled and novel techniques were available to efficiently drive and read-out their minute displacement. Here we report on a nano-optomechanical approach to this problem using miniature semiconductor disks. These devices combine mechanical motion at high frequency above the GHz, ultra-low mass of a few picograms, and moderate dissipation in liquids. We show that high-sensitivity optical measurements allow to direct resolve their thermally driven Brownian vibrations, even in the most dissipative liquids. Thanks to this novel technique, we experimentally, numerically and analytically investigate the interaction of these resonators with arbitrary liquids. Nano-optomechanical disks emerge as probes of rheological information of unprecedented sensitivity and speed, opening applications in sensing and fundamental science.
A new generation of cryogenic light detectors exploiting Neganov-Luke effect to enhance the thermal signal has been used to detect the Cherenkov light emitted by the electrons interacting in TeO$_{2}$ crystals. With this mechanism a high significance event-by-event discrimination between alpha and beta/gamma interactions at the $^{130}$Te neutrino-less double beta decay Q-value - (2527.515 $pm$ 0.013) keV - has been demonstrated. This measurement opens the possibility of drastically reducing the background in cryogenic experiments based on TeO$_{2}$.
We report on the evaluation of microwave frequency synthesis using two cryogenic sapphire oscillators developed at the University of Western Australia. A down converter is used to make comparisons between microwave clocks at different frequencies, where the synthesized signal has a stability not significantly different from the reference oscillator. By combining the CSO with a H-maser, a reference source of arbitrary frequency at X-band can be synthesized with a fractional frequency stability of sub-$4 times 10^{-15}$ for integration times between 1 s and 10,000 s.
The phase noise and frequency stability measurements of 1 GHz, 100 MHz, and 10 MHz signals are presented which have been synthesized from microwave cryogenic sapphire oscillators using ultra-low-vibration pulse-tube cryocooler technology. We present the measured data using independent cryogenic oscillators for the 100 MHz and 10 MHz synthesized signals, whereas previously we only estimated the expected results based on residual phase noise measurements, when only one cryogenic oscillator was available. In addition we present the design of a 1 GHz synthesizer using a Crystek voltage controlled oscillator phase locked to 1 GHz output derived from a cryogenic sapphire oscillator.