Motional control of mechanical resonators is crucial for their applications. In particular, cooling the mechanical mode to overcome the thermal noise has been greatly explored, and has recently...Show moreMotional control of mechanical resonators is crucial for their applications. In particular, cooling the mechanical mode to overcome the thermal noise has been greatly explored, and has recently been pushed into the quantum regime. In this thesis, we study an almost-forgotten cooling technique: resistive cooling with an artificial cold resistor (ACR) which is physically at room temperature. We perform a proof-of-principle demonstration to cool a mechanical mode of a quartz crystal with a “cold” resistor. The “cold” resistor is realised either by a normal resistor cooled by liquid nitrogen or by an ACR made of a special circuitry. We show that the ACR can cool the mode in the same way as a real cold resistor, and the cooling mechanism can be qualitatively understood in the basic thermodynamic picture. We also discuss the feasibility of applying such resistive cooling to an optomechanical system, with a nested trampoline resonator.Show less
