An Optomechanical Coin Flip: Wavelength-Modulated, Erbium-Powered Rotations in a Levitated System
Abstract
Optical levitation of nano-scale systems offers a pathway to highly sensitive rotation measurements, which are critical for advancing gyroscopic technologies. While prior studies have primarily focused on controlling rotational degrees of freedom of optically levitated particles via modulation of optical power, polarization, and ambient pressure, here we demonstrate wavelength-controlled rotation of the "coin-flip" mode in optically levitated NaYF hexagonal prisms doped with erbium by modulating the wavelength of a secondary pump beam. By switching the pump light wavelength, we precisely modulate the particle's rotation rate in a binary fashion, encoding the ASCII message "hello" in its rotational frequency. Finally, we observe long-term bimodal periodic dynamics in the rotational motion of a levitated prism that are suggestive of a Dzhanibekov (or tennis-racket)-like effect.
Cite
@article{arxiv.2602.20510,
title = {An Optomechanical Coin Flip: Wavelength-Modulated, Erbium-Powered Rotations in a Levitated System},
author = {George Winstone and Maddox Wroblewski and Lars Forberger and Zhiyuan Wang and Shelby Klomp and Scott Grudichak and Shafaq Gulzar Elahi and Yuqi Qian and Miriam M Florez and Zhaojie Feng and Peter J. Pauzauskie and Andrew A. Geraci},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2602.20510},
year = {2026}
}