Superfluid Brillouin optomechanics

Optomechanical systems couple an electromagnetic cavity to a mechanical resonator which typically is a solid object. The range of phenomena accessible in these systems depends on the properties of the mechanical resonator and on the manner in which it couples to the cavity fields. In both respects, a mechanical resonator formed from superfluid liquid helium offers several appealing features: low electromagnetic absorption, high thermal conductivity, vanishing viscosity, well-understood mechanical loss, and in situ alignment with cryogenic cavities. In addition, it offers degrees of freedom that differ qualitatively from those of a solid. Here, we describe an optomechanical system consisting of a miniature optical cavity filled with superfluid helium. The cavity mirrors define optical and mechanical modes with near-perfect overlap, resulting in an optomechanical coupling rate ∼3 kHz. This coupling is used to drive the superfluid and is also used to observe the thermal motion of the superfluid, resolving a mean phonon number as low as eleven. An optomechanical system made of an optical cavity filled with superfluid liquid helium provides the means to study phenomena involving different degrees of freedom than those in traditional solid-state resonators.