Related papers: Optical Trapping in a Dark Focus
We investigate quantum control of a single atom in an optical tweezer trap created by a tightly focused optical beam. We show that longitudinal polarization components in the dipole trap arising from the breakdown of the paraxial…
Optically levitated and cooled nanoparticles are a new quantum system whose application to the creation of non-classical states of motion and quantum limited sensing is fundamentally limited by recoil and bulk heating. We study the creation…
Atoms in spatially dependent light fields are attracted to local intensity maxima or minima depending on the sign of the frequency difference between the light and the atomic resonance. For light fields confined in open high-Q optical…
Photophoretic forces - which are of thermal origin - have defined an alternative route of optical trapping of absorbing microparticles in air. Here, we show that a single multi-mode fiber facilitates significantly more robust optical traps…
We fabricate a miniature spherical mirror for tightly focusing an optical dipole trap for neutral atoms. The mirror formation process is modelled to predict the dimensions for particular fabrication parameters. We integrate the spherical…
Optical and acoustical trapping has been established as a tool for holding and moving microscopic particles suspended in a liquid in a contact-free and non-invasive manner. Opposed to standard microscopic imaging where the probe is fixated,…
Reflection and refraction of light can be used to trap small dielectric particles in the geometrical optics regime. Absorption of light is usually neglected in theoretical calculations, but it is known that it occurs in the optical trapping…
We report on the loading of atoms contained in a magneto-optic trap into multiple optical traps formed within the focused beam of a CO_{2} laser. We show that under certain circumstances it is possible to create a linear array of dipole…
We demonstrate loading of SrF molecules into an optical dipole trap (ODT) via in-trap $\Lambda$-cooling. We find that this cooling can be optimized by a proper choice of relative ODT and $\Lambda$ beam polarizations. In this optimized…
We study the effects of the spin orbit interaction (SOI) of light in an optical trap and show that the propagation of the tightly focused trapping beam in a stratified medium can lead to significantly enhanced SOI. For a plane polarized…
Levitated optomechanical systems, and particularly particles trapped in vacuum, provide unique platforms for studying the mechanical behavior of objects well-isolated from their environment. Ultimately, such systems may enable the study of…
By analogy to the three dimensional optical bottle beam, we introduce the plasmonic bottle beam: a two dimensional surface wave which features a lattice of plasmonic bottles, i.e. alternating regions of bright focii surrounded by low…
Optical trapping enables precise control of individual particles of different sizes, such as atoms, molecules, or nanospheres. Optical tweezers provide free-space omnidirectional optical trapping of objects in laboratories around the world.…
We show that the optical force field in optical tweezers with elliptically polarized beams has the opposite handedness for a wide range of particle sizes and for the most common configurations. Our method is based on the direct observation…
We investigate fluorescence detection using a standing wave of blue-detuned light of one or more atoms held in a deep, microscopic dipole trap. The blue-detuned standing wave realizes a Sisyphus laser cooling mechanism so that an atom can…
We present an optical system designed to capture and observe a single neutral atom in an optical dipole trap, created by focussing a laser beam using a large numerical aperture N.A.=0.5 aspheric lens. We experimentally evaluate the…
When microspheres are illuminated by tightly focused vortex beams, they can be trapped in a non-equilibrium steady state where they orbit around the optical axis. By using the Mie-Debye theory for optical tweezers, we demonstrate that the…
We propose an experiment using optically trapped and cooled dielectric microspheres for the detection of short-range forces. The center-of-mass motion of a microsphere trapped in vacuum can experience extremely low dissipation and quality…
Trapping and manipulation of particles using laser beams has become an important tool in diverse fields of research. In recent years, particular interest is given to the problem of conveying optically trapped particles over extended…
We propose to control light trapping in a large ensemble of cold atoms by an external, static magnetic field. For an appropriate choice of frequency and polarization of the exciting pulse, the field is expected to speed up the fluorescence…