Suspension-Free Integrated Cavity Brillouin Optomechanics on a Chip

Abstract: Cavity optomechanical systems enable coherent photon-phonon interactions essential for quantum technologies, yet high-performance devices have been limited to suspended structures. Here, we overcome this limitation by demonstrating cavity Brillouin optomechanics in a suspension-free racetrack microring resonator on a lithium-niobate-on-sapphire chip, a platform that merits high stability and scalability. We demonstrate coherent coupling between telecom-band optical modes and a 9.6-GHz phonon mode, achieving a maximum cooperativity of $0.41$ and a phonon quality-factor-frequency product of $10^{13}\,\mathrm{Hz}$. The momentum-matching condition inherent to traveling-wave Brillouin interactions establishes a one-to-one mapping between optical wavelength and phonon frequency, enabling multi-channel parallel operations across nearly $300\,\mathrm{MHz}$ in phonon frequency and $40\,\mathrm{nm}$ in optical wavelength. Our suspension-free architecture provides a coherent photon-phonon interface compatible with wafer-scale integration, opening pathways toward hybrid quantum circuits that unite photonic, phononic, and superconducting components on a single chip.