I attended Gordon Research Conference (Mechanical Systems in the Quantum Regime Quantum, Phononics for Fundamental Measurements and Quantum Technology) in Ventura from June 19th to June 24th and gave a poster presentation on our Helium drop experiment.

A very very inspiring conference and had lots of opportunities to have detailed conversations with other researchers. Feel extremely welcomed when being back to beaches on Pacific Ocean.

The abstract is given below:

Abstract:

Interaction of light with vibrational motion of massive system provides a powerful access to measure and manipulate quantum behavior of mesoscopic objects. Superfluid liquid helium offers a number of unique advantages towards this goal: vanishing optical absorption, vanishing viscosity and high thermal conductivity. To take full advantage of superfluid liquid helium, the magnetic levitated helium drop in vacuum avoids the limits posted by the material surrounding the superfluid. We utilized the drop’s optical whispering gallery modes (WGMs) and its surface waves as an optomechanical system. Here we describe the formation and trapping of the drops, and their evaporative cooling in the trap to 330 mK. We also present our results on the characterization of vibrational and optical whispering-gallery modes in levitated drops of various size in mm-scale. We will discuss the possibility to realize high optical quality factors and strong opto-mechanical couplings in this system. These preliminary results demonstrate a potential path towards measurements of quantum behavior in macroscopic massive objects, and study of rotational quantum phenomena.

The link to the Poster (May take some time to download)