Optical levitation of fluorescent silicon carbide nanoparticles in vacuum
Abstract
Levitated optomechanics is an emerging field in quantum science that explores the quantum motion of mesoscopic particles levitated in a vacuum. Expanding this approach to particles with intrinsic quantum defects opens new opportunities for quantum sensing and nontrivial quantum state generation. Here, we explore silicon carbide (SiC) nanoparticles as a promising platform that offers a range of controllable quantum defects and material tunability. We demonstrate stable optical levitation of 3C-polytype SiC nanoparticles containing single photon emitters in a vacuum. We observe stable fluorescence from the levitated particle, confirming the preservation of the emitters in the levitated state. We also investigate particle loss at low pressure and explore thermal annealing as a potential method to improve trapping stability. Our results establish SiC as a viable platform for levitated optomechanics, providing additional quantum degrees of freedom and material engineering capabilities.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.2504.18653,
title = {Optical levitation of fluorescent silicon carbide nanoparticles in vacuum},
author = {Seyed Khalil Alavi and Cheng-I Ho and Iuliia Neumann and Daniel Eberle and Vadim Vorobyov and Bertold Rasche and Sungkun Hong},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2504.18653},
year = {2025}
}