Coupling graphene mechanics to a superconducting microwave resonator

Graphene-based nanoelectromechanical systems (NEMS) exhibit large zero point fluctuations due to their exceptionally low mass, an attractive 
characteristic for experiments in quantum limit. To approach this limit, we couple a graphene mechanical resonator to a high quality factor superconducting microwave resonator. This allows us to measure graphene's mechanical motion with a displacement sensitivity of ~ 85 fm Hz^-0.5, enabling us to study the onset of mechanical nonlinearity in this ultra-thin nano-mechanical resonator. By utilizing the enhanced parametric coupling, we are able to see the complementary effect of graphene motion on the superconducting cavity response in low cooperativity limit. Parameters from this experiment suggest that this could be a promising approach to cool graphene resonator to its quantum ground state.