Photon-phonon entanglement and frequency upconversion with molecular oscillators*

I will show that molecular vibrations, with oscillation frequencies in the tens of THz, can sustain quantum effects such as superposition and entanglement at room temperature. I will also present a new application of molecular oscillators for frequency upconversion from mid-infrared to visible light. Molecules are embedded inside a dual-resonant plasmonic nanocavity offering deep-sub-wavelength light confinement both at mid-infrared to visible frequencies  and resulting in about 13 orders of magnitude enhancement in upconversion efficiency compared to the same molecules in free space. This work demonstrates the untapped potential of molecular cavity optomechanics for coherent signal transduction.