Mode competition and anomalous cooling in a multimode phonon laser

Published

July 15, 2014

Author(s)

Utku Kemiktarak, Michael Metcalfe, Mathieu Durand, John R. Lawall

Abstract

We study mode competition in a multimode “phonon laser” comprised of a Fabry-Perot cavity employing a highly reflective membrane as the output coupler. Mechanical gain is provided by driving the cavity with a blue-detuned pump laser, and many mechanical modes are coupled to the intracavity radiation pressure. We calculate the gain for arbitrary oscillation amplitude, and find, just as in a homogeneously broadened conventional laser, that strong oscillation in one mode suppresses the gain in other modes. For sufficiently strong oscillation, we calculate that the gain of the other modes actually switches sign and becomes damping, a process we call “anomalous cooling.” We demonstrate mode competition in the time domain and find excellent agreement with the predictions of our theory, including anomalous cooling.

Citation

Physical Review Letters

Pub Type

Journals

Download Paper

https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.113.030802

Keywords

Opto-mechanics, Coupled oscillators, Laser Oscillations

Citation

Kemiktarak, U. , Metcalfe, M. , Durand, M. and Lawall, J. (2014), Mode competition and anomalous cooling in a multimode phonon laser, Physical Review Letters, [online], https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.113.030802 (Accessed October 11, 2025)