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The torsion pendulum is a prevailing instrument for measuring small forces acting on a solid body or those between solid bodies. While it offers powerful advantages, the measurement precision suffers from thermal noises of the suspending…
Precision sensing and manipulation of milligram-scale mechanical oscillators has attracted growing interest in the fields of table-top explorations of gravity and tests of quantum mechanics at macroscopic scales. Torsional oscillators…
We propose a thought experiment, based on a mechanism that is reminiscent of Cavendish's torsion balance, to investigate the possible quantum nature of the gravitational field generated by the quantum superposition state of a massive…
We report measurements of the short-range forces between two macroscopic gold-coated plates using a torsion pendulum. The force is measured for separations between 0.7 $\mu$m and 7 $\mu$m, and is well described by a combination of the…
Miniaturization of force probes into nanomechanical oscillators enables ultrasensitive investigations of forces on dimensions smaller than their characteristic length scale. Meanwhile it also unravels the force field vectorial character and…
Gravity generated by large masses has been observed using a variety of probes from atomic interferometers to torsional balances. However, gravitational coupling between small masses has never been observed so far. Here, we demonstrate…
Gravity is the weakest fundamental interaction and the only one that has not been measured at the particle level. Traditional experimental methods, from astronomical observations to torsion balances, use macroscopic masses to both source…
The experimental verification of the Newton law of gravity at small scales has been a longstanding challenge. Recently, torsion balance experiments have successfully measured gravitational force at the millimeter scale. However, testing…
The precise calibration of the strain readout of the LIGO gravitational wave observatories is paramount to the accurate interpretation of gravitational wave events. This calibration is traditionally done by imparting a known force on the…
In this paper we argue that, even though there are strong theoretical and empirical reasons to expect a violation of spatial isotropy at short distances, contemporary setups for probing gravitational interactions at short distances have not…
Torsion pendulums have been widely used in physical experiments, because their small restoring forces are suitable for tiny force measurement. Recently, some applications such as low-frequency gravity gradiometers have been proposed by…
Gravity differs from all other known fundamental forces since it is best described as a curvature of spacetime. For that reason it remains resistant to unifications with quantum theory. Gravitational interaction is fundamentally weak and…
Recent advances in nanotechnology have created tremendous excitement across different disciplines but in order to fully control and manipulate nano-scale objects, we must understand the forces at work at the nano-scale, which can be very…
High-precision sensing of vectorial forces has broad impact on both fundamental research and technological applications such as the examination of vacuum fluctuations \cite{casimir09rmp} and the detection of surface roughness of…
We report the development of an ultrasensitive optomechanical sensor designed to improve the accuracy and precision of force measurements with atomic force microscopy. The sensors reach quality factors of 4.3x10^6 and force resolution on…
A levitated non-spherical nanoparticle in a vacuum is ideal for studying quantum rotations and is an extremely sensitive torque and force detector. It has been proposed to probe fundamental particle-surface interactions such as the Casimir…
Mechanical resonators based on a single carbon nanotube are exceptional sensors of mass and force. The force sensitivity in these ultra-light resonators is often limited by the noise in the detection of the vibrations. Here, we report on an…
Measuring the effect of gravity on antimatter is a longstanding problem in physics that has significant implications for our understanding of the fundamental nature of the universe. Here, we present a technique to measure the gravitational…
About 300 experiments have tried to determine the value of the Newtonian gravitational constant, G, so far, but large discrepancies in the results have made it impossible to know its value precisely. The weakness of the gravitational…
Non-invasive thermal noise calibration of both torsional and flexural eigenmodes is performed on numerous cantilevers of 10 different types. We show that for all tipless and short-tipped cantilevers, the ratio of torsional to flexural mode…