Quantum-enabled microwave-to-optical transduction via silicon nanomechanics

Continuous microwave-to-optical transduction in silicon nanomechanics with below-one-photon input-referred added noise.

Key Results

Input-referred added noise n_add = 0.58 under continuous-wave operation
Upconversion rate R = 0.47 to 1.9 kHz, about two orders of magnitude beyond the previous state of the art
Silicon platform avoids heterogeneous piezoelectric integration and supports scalable fabrication