Related papers: Quantum squeezing of a levitated nanomechanical os…
Nanoparticles levitated in vacuum can be set to spin at ultimate frequencies, limited only by the tensile strength of the material. At such high frequencies, drastic changes to the dynamics of solid-state quantum excitations are to be…
We propose to optimally control the harmonic potential of a levitated nanoparticle to quantum delocalize its center-of-mass motional state to a length scale orders of magnitude larger than the quantum zero-point motion. Using a bang-bang…
We investigate experimentally the dynamics of a non-spherical levitated nanoparticle in vacuum. In addition to translation and rotation motion, we observe the light torque-induced precession and nutation of the trapped particle. We provide…
We report on the two-dimensional (2D) dynamics of a levitated nanoparticle in an optical cavity. The motion of the nanosphere is strongly coupled to the cavity field by coherent scattering and heavily cooled in the plane orthogonal to the…
Quantum sensing and quantum information processing use quantum advantages such as squeezed states that encode a quantity of interest with higher precision and generate quantum correlations to outperform classical methods. In harmonic…
Levitodynamics, i.e., the levitation of objects of mesoscopic size has made huge progress in the last decade, giving rise to new experimental opportunities for instance in materials science, but also allowing to address questions of…
As a result of the quantum, wave-like nature of the physical world, a harmonic oscillator can never be completely at rest. Even in the quantum ground state, its position will always have fluctuations, called the zero-point motion. Although…
While quantum mechanics exquisitely describes the behavior of microscopic systems, one ongoing challenge is to explore its applicability to systems of larger size and mass. Unfortunately, quantum states of increasingly macroscopic objects…
Preparing and observing quantum states of nanoscale particles is a challenging task with great relevance for quantum technologies and tests of fundamental physics. In contrast to atomic systems with discrete transitions, nanoparticles…
We propose a protocol to measure impulses beyond the standard quantum limit. The protocol reduces noise in all three spatial dimensions and consists of squeezing a mechanical system's state via a series of jumps in the frequency of the…
Engineering nano-mechanical quantum systems possessing ultra-long motional coherence times allow for applications in ultra-sensitive quantum sensing, motional quantum memories and motional interfaces between other carriers of quantum…
A pair of conjugate observables, such as the quadrature amplitudes of harmonic motion, have fundamental fluctuations which are bound by the Heisenberg uncertainty relation. However, in a squeezed quantum state, fluctuations of a quantity…
Levitated optomechanics is showing potential for precise force measurements. Here, we report a case study, to show experimentally the capacity of such a force sensor. Using an electric field as a tool to detect a Coulomb force applied onto…
A mechanically compliant element can be set into motion by the interaction with light. In turn, this light-driven motion can give rise to ponderomotive correlations in the electromagnetic field. In optomechanical systems, cavities are often…
With the purpose of controlling the steady state of a dielectric nanosphere levitated within an optical cavity, we study its conditional dynamics under simultaneous sideband cooling and additional time-continuous measurement of either the…
Methods for controlling the motion of single particles, optically levitated in vacuum, have developed rapidly in recent years. The technique of cold damping makes use of feedback-controlled, electrostatic forces to increase dissipation…
Optically trapped nanoparticles have recently emerged as exciting candidates for tests of quantum mechanics at the macroscale and as versatile platforms for ultrasensitive metrology. Recent experiments have demonstrated parametric feedback…
Interferometric methods for detecting the motion of a levitated nanoparticle provide a route to the quantum ground state, but such methods are currently limited by mode mismatch between the reference beam and the dipolar field scattered by…
Squeezed states of light constitute an important nonclassical resource in the field of high-precision measurements, e.g. gravitational wave detection, as well as in the field of quantum information, e.g. for teleportation, quantum…
Atoms trapped in the evanescent field around a nanofiber experience strong coupling to the light guided in the fiber mode. However, due to the intrinsically strong positional dependence of the coupling, thermal motion of the ensemble limits…