  The dynamical Casimir effect is an intriguing phenomenon in which photons are
generated from vacuum due to a non-adiabatic change in some boundary
conditions. In particular, it connects the motion of an accelerated mechanical
mirror to the generation of photons. While pioneering experiments demonstrating
this effect exist, a conclusive measurement involving a mechanical generation
is still missing. We show that a hybrid system consisting of a piezoelectric
mechanical resonator coupled to a superconducting cavity may allow to
electro-mechanically generate measurable photons from vacuum, intrinsically
associated to the dynamical Casimir effect. Such an experiment may be achieved
with current technology, based on film bulk acoustic resonators directly
coupled to a superconducting cavity. Our results predict a measurable photon
generation rate, which can be further increased through additional improvements
such as using superconducting metamaterials.
