Nanomechanical oscillator

Physicists, have shown how a nanomechanical oscillator can be used for detection and amplification of feeble radio waves or microwaves. A measurement using such a tiny device, resembling a miniaturized guitar string, can be performed with the least possible disturbance.

The researchers cooled the nanomechanical oscillator, thousand times thinner than a human hair, down to a low temperature near the absolute zero at -273 centigrade. Under such extreme conditions, even nearly macroscopic sized objects follow the laws of quantum physics which often contradict common sense. In the Low Temperature Laboratory experiments, the nearly billion atoms comprising the nanomechanical resonator were oscillating in pace in their shared quantum state.

The scientists had fabricated the device in contact with a superconducting cavity resonator, which exchanges energy with the nanomechanical resonator. This allowed amplification of their resonant motion. This is very similar to what happens in a guitar, where the string and the echo chamber resonate at the same frequency. Instead of the musician playing the guitar string, the energy source was provided by a microwave laser.