Optomechanics with ripplons on superfluid helium

Superfluid helium has arisen as a promising candidate for optomechanics systems. Due to extremely low loss well below the lambda point, vibrations on the helium -- ripplons -- are expected to have high quality factors [1]. Here we report on progress towards coupling microwave photons in a superconducting LC resonator to ripplons in SU8 microchannels. In our device, ripplons ($\omega_{\mathrm{m}}$/2$\pi \quad \approx $ 0.5 MHz) can be generated using interdigitated transducers and detected using superconducting resonators. We estimate the coupling of our device on the order of 5 kHz per nm of ripplon wave amplitude. In this talk, we will discuss our experiments probing the properties of ripplons and thermal vibrations of the helium. [1] P. Roche et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 75, 3316 (1995)