Injection locking in an optomechanical coherent phonon source

Abstract Spontaneous locking of the phase a coherent phonon source to an external reference is demonstrated in deeply sideband-unresolved optomechanical system. The high-amplitude mechanical oscillations are driven by anharmonic modulation radiation pressure force that result from absorption-mediated free-carrier/temperature limit cycle, i.e., self-pulsing. Synchronization observed when pump laser driving oscillator self-sustained state modulated radiofrequency tone. We employ pump-probe detection scheme based on independent optical cavity observe only dynamics. lock range oscillation frequency, Arnold tongue, experimentally determined over strengths, evidencing possibility tune frequency for up 350 kHz. stability evaluated via its noise, with maximum achieved suppression 44 dBc/Hz at 1 kHz offset 100 MHz resonator. Introducing weak excitation reveals as further knob trigger, control and stabilize dynamical solutions self-pulsing oscillators, thus enhancing their potential acoustic wave sources single-layer silicon platform.