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Related papers: Optical centrifuge for nanoparticles

200 papers

Optical centrifuge has emerged as a promising tool for achieving centrifuge motion of particles in many fields. Herein, we report a novel optical centrifuge, as driven by optical lateral force arising from transverse phase gradient of light…

Optics · Physics 2020-11-30 Xionggui Tang , Yi Shen , Yanhua Xu

An optical centrifuge is a laser pulse which enables controlled rotational excitation of molecules. Centrifuged molecules rotating with well-defined angular frequencies are ideal candidates to probe many-body quantum systems at the…

Chemical Physics · Physics 2025-10-10 K. Wang , A. Hardikar , A. A. Milner , V. Milner

We outline the design and characterization of a laser pulse shaper, which creates an ``ultraslow optical centrifuge'' - a linearly polarized field whose polarization vector rotates with arbitrarily low angular acceleration. By directly…

Chemical Physics · Physics 2026-03-12 Kevin Wang , Ian MacPhail-Bartley , Cameron E. Peters , Valery Milner

We investigate theoretically the ability of an optical centrifuge - a laser pulse whose linear polarization is rotating at an accelerated rate, to control molecular rotation in the regime when the rigid-rotor approximation breaks down due…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2025-12-11 J. M. García-Garrido , V. Milner , C. P. Koch , R. González-Férez

Optical control of nanoscale objects has recently developed into a thriving field of research with far-reaching promises for precision measurements, fundamental quantum physics and studies on single-particle thermodynamics. Here, we…

We describe the design, construction, and operation of an apparatus utilizing a piezoelectric transducer for in-vacuum loading of nanoparticles into an optical trap for use in levitated optomechanics experiments. In contrast to commonly…

We study a nanofabricated silicon rod levitated in an optical trap. By manipulating the polarization of the light we gain full control over the ro-translational dynamics of the rod. We are able to trap both its centre-of-mass and align it…

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…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2025-10-08 Felipe Almeida , Peter Barker

We experimentally demonstrate that the rotation of molecules embedded in helium nanodroplets can be controlled with an optical centrifuge, allowing for the study of molecular dynamics inside the strongly interacting many-body environment of…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2025-11-11 Ian MacPhail-Bartley , Alexander A. Milner , Frank Stienkemeier , Valery Milner

Light-induced rotation of absorbing microscopic particles by transfer of angular momentum from light to the material raises the possibility of optically driven micromachines. The phenomenon has been observed using elliptically polarized…

Strong laser-induced magnetization of oxygen gas at room temperature and atmospheric pressure is achieved experimentally on the sub-nanosecond time scale. The method is based on controlling the electronic spin of paramagnetic molecules by…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2017-06-21 A. A. Milner , A. Korobenko , V. Milner

Near-field patterns of light provide a way to optically trap, deliver and sort single nanoscopic particles in a wide variety of applications in nanophotonics, microbiology and nanotechnology. Using rigorous electromagnetic theory, we…

Optics · Physics 2022-06-01 Edgar Alonso Guzmán , Alejandro V. Arzola

Since its invention in 1999, optical centrifuge has become a powerful tool for controlling molecular rotation and studying molecular dynamics and molecular properties at extreme levels of rotational excitation. The technique has been…

Instrumentation and Detectors · Physics 2020-05-20 Ian MacPhail-Bartley , Walter W. Wasserman , Alexander A. Milner , V. Milner

We report on strong cooling and orientational control of all translational and angular degrees of freedom of a nanoparticle levitated in an optical trap in high vacuum. The motional cooling and control of all six degrees of freedom of a…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2023-04-25 Antonio Pontin , Hayden Fu , Marko Toroš , Tania S. Monteiro , Peter F. Barker

Realizing a large-scale fully controllable quantum system is a challenging task in current physical research and has broad applications. Ultracold atom and molecule arrays in optical tweezers in vacuum have been used for quantum simulation,…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2022-07-11 Jiangwei Yan , Xudong Yu , Zheng Vitto Han , Tongcang Li , Jing Zhang

We report an experimental observation of a record-breaking ultra-high rotation frequency about 6 GHz in an optically levitated nanoparticle system. We optically trap a nanoparticle in the gravity direction with a high numerical aperture…

Optics · Physics 2021-07-12 Yuanbin Jin , Jiangwei Yan , Shah Jee Rahman , Jie Li , Xudong Yu , Jing Zhang

In this Letter we show how a single beam optical trap offers the means for three-dimensional manipulation of semiconductor nanorods in solution. Furthermore rotation of the direction of the electric field provides control over the…

Biological Physics · Physics 2012-03-06 C. Robin Head , Elena Kammann , Marco Zanella , Liberato Manna , Pavlos G. Lagoudakis

Levitated optomechanics has great potentials in precision measurements, thermodynamics, macroscopic quantum mechanics and quantum sensing. Here we synthesize and optically levitate silica nanodumbbells in high vacuum. With a linearly…

Applied Physics · Physics 2018-07-26 Jonghoon Ahn , Zhujing Xu , Jaehoon Bang , Yu-Hao Deng , Thai M. Hoang , Qinkai Han , Ren-Min Ma , Tongcang Li

We report on rotating an optically trapped silica nanoparticle in vacuum by transferring spin angular momentum of light to the particle's mechanical angular momentum. At sufficiently low damping, realized at pressures below $10^{-5}$ mbar,…

The field of levitodynamics has made substantial advancements in manipulating the translational and rotational degrees of freedom of levitated nanoparticles. Notably, rotational degrees of freedom can now be cooled to millikelvin…

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