QUROPE Quantum Information Processing and Communication in Europe

We investigate the efficiency of cooling the vibrations of a nanomechanical resonator, constituted by a partially suspended carbon nanotube and operating as double-quantum dot. The motion is brought to lower temperatures by tailoring the energy exchange via electromechanical coupling with single electrons, constantly flowing through the nanotube when a constant potential difference is applied at its extremes in the Coulomb-blockade regime. Ground-state cooling is possible at sufficiently high-quality factors, provided that the dephasing rate of electron transport within the double dot does not exceed the resonator frequency. For large values of the dephasing rates cooling can still be achieved by appropriately setting the tunable parameters.