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Optical manipulation has attracted remarkable interest owing to its versatile and non-invasive nature. However, conventional optical trapping remains inefficient for the nanoscopic world. The emergence of plasmonics in recent years has…
Standard optical tweezers rely on optical forces that arise when a focused laser beam interacts with a microscopic particle: scattering forces, which push the particle along the beam direction, and gradient forces, which attract it towards…
Optically-levitated nanoparticles in vacuum offer a pristine platform for high-quality mechanical oscillators, enabling a wide range of precision measurements and quantum technologies. A key performance metric in such systems is the…
Achieving efficient three-dimensional feedback cooling of levitated nanoparticles is a key requirement for precision sensing and quantum control in levitated optomechanics. Here we demonstrate three-dimensional optical feedback cooling of a…
For several decades, ions have been trapped by radio frequency (RF) and neutral particles by optical fields. We implement the experimental proof-of-principle for trapping an ion in an optical dipole trap. While loading, initialization and…
The evanescent field surrounding nano-scale optical waveguides offers an efficient interface between light and mesoscopic ensembles of neutral atoms. However, the thermal motion of trapped atoms, combined with the strong radial gradients of…
Coherent wavepacket expansion is a key component of recent proposals aiming to create non-classical states of a levitated dielectric nanoparticle. Free evolution, i.e., releasing the particle from its harmonic trapping potential and…
The controllable positioning of a vacuum-levitated object near a material surface is of importance for studying short-range forces, such as Casimir forces, interfacial friction forces, or gravity in yet unexplored parameter regimes. Here we…
We propose a novel way to trap and manipulate nano-objects above a dielectric substrate using an apertureless near-field probe. A combination of evanescent illumination and light scattering at the probe apex is used to shape the optical…
We propose and analyze a scheme to interface individual neutral atoms with nanoscale solid-state systems. The interface is enabled by optically trapping the atom via the strong near-field generated by a sharp metallic nanotip. We show that…
Optical tweezers are widely used as a highly sensitive tool to measure forces on micron-scale particles. One such application is the measurement of the electric charge of a particle, which can be done with high precision in liquids, air, or…
We demonstrate a simple and robust geometry for optical trapping in vacuum of a single nanoparticle based on a parabolic mirror and the optical gradient force, and we demonstrate rapid parametric feedback cooling of all three motional…
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…
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…
Reconfigurable arrays of trapped single atoms are an excellent platform for the simulation of many-body physics and the realisation of high-fidelity quantum gates. The confinement of atoms is often achieved with focussed laser beams acting…
Sensing weak forces through observing a mechanical motion near or below its quantum zero-point fluctuation has been desired in diverse areas. While mechanical oscillators have played a crucial role in such studies, their application to…
Controlling the transport, trapping, and filtering of nanoparticles is important for many applications. By virtue of their weak response to gravity and their thermal motion, various physical mechanisms can be exploited for such operations…
We demonstrate feedback cooling of the center-of-mass motion of single charged nanoparticles to millikelvin temperatures in three dimensions via applying oscillating electric fields synchronized to their optically observed motion. The…
In a neutral atom quantum computer, the qubits are individual neutral atoms trapped in optical tweezers. Excitations to Rydberg states form the basis for the entanglement procedure that is at the basis of multi-qubit quantum gates. However,…
The manipulation of microparticles using optical forces has led to many applications in the life and physical sciences. To extend optical trapping towards the nano-regime, in this work we demonstrate trapping of single nanoparticles in…