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Paul traps are devices that confine particles using an alternating electric field and have been used in undergraduate experimental classes at universities. Owing to the requirement of a high voltage ($> 10^3$ V), Paul traps are not used in…
In two-color optical nanofiber-based dipole traps for cold alkali atoms, the trap efficiency depends on the wavelength and intensity of light in the evanescent field, and the initial laser-cooling process. Typically, no more than one atom…
We have demonstrated transport of Be+ ions through a 2D Paul-trap array that incorporates an X-junction, while maintaining the ions near the motional ground-state of the confining potential well. We expand on the first report of the…
Levitated optomechanical systems are rapidly becoming leading tools for precision sensing of forces and accelerations acting on particles in the femtogram to nanogram mass range. These systems enable a high level of control over the…
Optical tweezers exploit light--matter interactions to trap particles ranging from single atoms to micrometer-sized eukaryotic cells. For this reason, optical tweezers are a ubiquitous tool in physics, biology, and nanotechnology. Recently,…
A novel robust mechanism for the generation of "trapping states" is shown to exist in the coupling of a two-level system with an oscillator, which is based on nonlinearities in the laser-induced vibronic coupling. This mechanism is…
While laser excitation of the nuclear isomeric transition in $^{229}$Th has been recently achieved for thorium atoms embedded in large-bandgap crystals, laser excitation and characterization of the nuclear transition in trapped…
We present a novel approach to determine the optical properties of materials in the nanoscale range using optical tweezers (OT). Fluorescent polymer-based nanostructures (pdots) are optically trapped in a Gaussian beam OT and the trap…
We study the dynamics of the center of mass of a Brownian particle levitated in a Paul trap. We focus on the overdamped regime in the context of levitodynamics, comparing theory with our numerical simulations and experimental data from a…
In the last decade, a growing interest has been devoted to models of spontaneous collapse of the wavefunction, known also as collapse models. They coherently solve the well-known quantum measurement problem by suitably modifying the…
Hybrid quantum systems that unite laser-cooled trapped ions and ultracold quantum gases in a single experimental setup have opened a rapidly advancing field of study, including Quantum chemistry, polaron physics, quantum information…
We present the design and vacuum performance of a compact room-temperature trapped ion system for quantum computing, consisting of a ultra-high vacuum (UHV) package, a micro-fabricated surface trap and a small form-factor ion pump. The…
In condensed-matter physics, remarkable advances have been made with atomic systems by establishing a thorough control over cooling and trapping techniques. In semiconductors, this method may also provide a deterministic approach to reach…
We model the efficiency of loading atoms of various species into a one dimensional optical lattice from a cold ensemble taking into account the initial cloud temperature and size, the lattice laser properties affecting the trapping…
Optical tweezers are powerful tools based on focused laser beams. They are able to trap, manipulate and investigate a wide range of microscopic and nanoscopic particles in different media, such as liquids, air, and vacuum. Key applications…
Continuous spontaneous localisation (CSL) is a model that captures the effects of a class of extensions to quantum theory which are expected to result from quantum gravity, and is such that wavefunction collapse is a physical process. The…
We propose a novel algorithm to efficiently generate hidden structures to support arrangements of floating rigid objects. Our optimization finds a small set of rods and wires between objects and each other or a supporting surface (e.g.,…
Engineering coherent spatial superpositions of levitated large masses is an ongoing challenge. Borrowing from recent experimental work, we consider a charged mass of hundreds of nanometers size (``nanoparticle'') co-trapped with an ion in a…
Acoustic levitation provides a unique method for manipulating small particles as it completely evades effects from gravity, container walls, or physical handling. These advantages make it a tantalizing platform for studying complex…
The use of levitated nanospheres represents a new paradigm for the optomechanical cooling of a small mechanical oscillator, with the prospect of realising quantum oscillators with unprecedentedly high quality factors. We investigate the…