Related papers: High sensitivity, levitated microsphere apparatus …
We theoretically show that a magnet can be stably levitated on top of a punctured superconductor sheet in the Meissner state without applying any external field. The trapping potential created by such induced-only superconducting currents…
Optical tweezers are highly versatile laser traps for neutral microparticles, with fundamental applications in physics and in single molecule cell biology. Force measurements are performed by converting the stiffness response to…
Optically-levitated nanoparticles in vacuum offer a pristine platform for high-quality mechanical oscillators, enabling a wide range of precision measurements and quantum technologies. A key performance metric in such systems is the…
Surface Force Apparatus (SFA) allows to accurately resolve the interfacial properties of fluids confined between extended surfaces. The accuracy of the SFA makes it an ubiquitous tool for the nanoscale mechanical characterization of soft…
Atomic force microscopy (AFM) has been constantly supporting nanosciences and nanotechnologies for over 30 years, being present in many fields from condensed matter physics to biology. It enables measuring very weak forces at the nanoscale,…
Mechanical force is an essential feature for many physical and biological processes.1-12 Remote measurement of mechanical signals with high sensitivity and spatial resolution is needed for diverse applications, including robotics,13…
Optically levitated mechanical sensors promise isolation from thermal noise far beyond what is possible using flexible materials alone. One way to access this potential is to apply a strong optical trap to a minimally supported mechanical…
Sensitive transduction of the motion of a microscale cantilever is central to many applications in mass, force, magnetic resonance, and displacement sensing. Reducing cantilever size to nanoscale dimensions can improve the bandwidth and…
Miniaturized mechanical resonators have proven to be excellent force sensors. However, they usually rely on resonant sensing schemes, and their excellent performance cannot be utilized for the detection of static forces. Here, we report on…
We report on the realization of a displacement sensor based on an optical nanofiber. A single gold nano-sphere is deposited on top of a nanofiber and the system is placed within a standing wave which serves as a position ruler. Scattered…
Mechanical oscillators are at the heart of many sensor applications. Recently several groups have developed oscillators that are probed optically, fabricated from high-stress silicon nitride films. They exhibit outstanding force…
Focused laser beams allow controlling mechanical motion of objects and can serve as a tool for assembling complex micro and nano structures in space. While in a vast majority of cases small particles experience attractive gradient forces…
The micro-electromechanical-system (MEMS) force and acceleration sensor utilizing the graphene-induced non-radiative transition was investigated. The graphene-induced non-radiative transition is very sensitive to the distance, and the…
While conventional optical trapping techniques can trap objects with submicron dimensions, the underlying limits imposed by the diffraction of light generally restrict their use to larger or higher refractive index particles. As the index…
We present experimental results on optical trapping of Yb-doped $\beta-$NaYF sub-wavelength-thickness high-aspect-ratio hexagonal prisms with a micron-scale radius. The prisms are trapped in vacuum using an optical standing wave, oriented…
We explain and demonstrate a new method of force- and position-calibration for optical tweezers with back-focal-plane photo detection. The method combines power spectral measurements of thermal motion and the response to a sinusoidal motion…
Mechanical resonators based on low-dimensional materials are promising for force and mass sensing experiments. The force sensitivity in these ultra-light resonators is often limited by the imprecision in the measurement of the vibrations,…
We present a new capacitive sensor for displacement measurement in a Surface Forces Apparatus (SFA) which allows dynamical measurements in the range of 0-100 Hz. This sensor measures the relative displacement between two macroscopic opaque…
Optically levitated micro- and nanoparticles offer an ideal playground for investigating photon-phonon interactions over macroscopic distances. Here we report the observation of long-range optical binding of multiple microparticles,…
We report the development of a scanning force microscope based on an ultra-sensitive silicon nitride membrane transducer. Our development is made possible by inverting the standard microscope geometry - in our instrument, the substrate is…