A way to measure and control phonons
Bob Yirka
Those photons were then reflected back to a photon detector and were subsequently analyzed using Hanbury Brown and Twiss interferometry. The researchers used the state of the photons to determine the non-classical state of the phonons in the device. The team showed that individual phonons moving in a crystal follow the laws of quantum mechanics as opposed to classical physics. More information: Sungkun Hong et al. Hanbury Brown and Twiss interferometry of single phonons from an optomechanical resonator, Science (2017). Our result establishes purely optical quantum control of a mechanical oscillator at the single phonon level.