Multimode optomechanical system in the quantum regime

Optomechanics is the field of research studying the interaction of light and mechanical motion of mesoscopic objects. Recently, the quantum mechanical character of this interaction has been of particular interest. So far, experimental research, especially in the quantum regime, has focused on canonical systems with only one optical and mechanical degree of freedom—or mode—, respectively. In this work, we introduce a simple and robust optomechanical system featuring many, highly coherent mechanical modes. We evidence and investigate strong quantum correlations in this system, generated by the presence of this multitude of mechanical modes. This represents a key step toward multimode quantum optomechanics, which offers richer dynamics, new quantum phenomena, and a more accurate representation of real-world mechanical sensors.