Related papers: An optical centrifuge with zero rotational acceler…
The optical lever is a precision displacement sensor with broad applications. In principle, it can track the motion of a mechanical oscillator with added noise at the Standard Quantum Limit (SQL); however, demonstrating this performance…
Optical injection locking of the repetition frequency of a quantum cascade laser frequency comb is demonstrated using an intensity modulated near-infrared light at 1.55 $\mu$m illuminating the front facet of the laser. Compared to the…
Optical oscillators present a powerful optimization mechanism. The inherent competition for the gain resources between possible modes of oscillation entails the prevalence of the most efficient single mode. We harness this 'ultrafast'…
Coherent manipulation of quantum bits (qubits) on time scales much shorter than the coherence time is a key prerequisite for quantum information processing. Electron spins in quantum dots (QDs) are particularly attractive for…
We report on a generic cooling technique for atoms trapped in optical lattices. It consists in modulating the lattice depth with a proper frequency sweeping. This filtering technique removes the most energetic atoms, and provides with the…
Advances of quantum control technology have led to nearly perfect single-qubit control of nuclear spins and atomic hyperfine ground states. In contrast, quantum control of strong optical transitions, even for free atoms, are far from being…
We report on the injection locking of an optically levitated nanomechanical oscillator (a silica nanosphere) to resonant intensity modulations of an external optical signal. We explore the characteristic features of injection locking in…
We demonstrate the use of an optical frequency comb to coherently control and entangle atomic qubits. A train of off-resonant ultrafast laser pulses is used to efficiently and coherently transfer population between electronic and…
Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) is a powerful tool for applications ranging from chemical analysis to quantum information processing. Achieving optical initialization and detection of molecular nuclear spins promises new opportunities -…
When circularly polarized light is scattered from a rotating target, a rotational Doppler shift (RDS) emerges from an exchange of angular momentum between the spinning object and the electromagnetic field. Here, we used coherently spinning…
We demonstrate rotational and vibrational cooling of cesium dimers by optical pumping techniques. We use two laser sources exciting all the populated rovibrational states, except a target state that thus behaves like a dark state where…
We consider deflection of polarizable molecules by inhomogeneous optical fields, and analyze the role of molecular orientation and rotation in the scattering process. It is shown that molecular rotation induces spectacular rainbow-like…
We apply two different monotonically convergent optimization algorithms to the control of molecular rotational dynamics by laser pulses. This example represents a quantum control problem where the interaction of the system with the external…
We present a novel mechanism in which plasma electrons and ions optically acquire angular momentum during local pump depletion of an azimuthally polarized laser, despite the laser carrying none. Using theoretical considerations and…
We use an optical centrifuge to deposit a controllable amount of rotational energy into dense molecular ensembles. Subsequent rotation-translation energy transfer, mediated by thermal collisions, results in the localized heating of the gas…
I propose a superoscillation measurement method for subdiffraction incoherent optical sources, with potential applications in astronomy, remote sensing, fluorescence microscopy, and spectroscopy. The proposal, based on coherent optical…
Recent quantum technologies have established precise quantum control of various microscopic systems using electromagnetic waves. Interfaces based on cryogenic cavity electro-optic systems are particularly promising, due to the direct…
We review recent works on optomechanics of optically trapped microspheres and nanoparticles in vacuum, which provide an ideal system for studying macroscopic quantum mechanics and ultrasensitive force detection. An optically trapped…
Optically levitated nonspherical particles in vacuum are excellent candidates for torque sensing, rotational quantum mechanics, high-frequency gravitational wave detection, and multiple other applications. Many potential applications, such…
Custom-designed colloidal particles in an optical tweezers act as light-mills in a fluid. In particular, aqueous suspensions of capped colloids, in which half of the surface is covered with metal layers, are investigated. Due to their…