Full Rotational Control of Levitated Silicon Nanorods

Abstract

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 along the linear polarization of the laser field. The rod can be set into rotation at a tuned frequency by exploiting the radiation pressure exerted by elliptically polarized light. The rotational motion of the rod dynamically modifies the optical potential, which allows tuning of the rotational frequency over hundreds of Kilohertz. This ability to trap and control the motion and alignment of nanoparticles opens up the field of rotational optomechanics, rotational ground state cooling and the study of rotational thermodynamics in the underdamped regime.

5 pages, 4 figures, 4 Supplementary pages, 4 Supplementary figures

References in corpus (7)

• Sideband Cooling Micromechanical Motion to the Quantum Ground State
• Optical alignment and spinning of laser-trapped microscopic particles
• Millikelvin cooling of an optically trapped microsphere in vacuum
• Testing the limits of quantum mechanical superpositions
• High-sensitivity optical monitoring of a micro-mechanical resonator with a quantum-limited optomechanical sensor
• Dynamic Relaxation of a Levitated Nanoparticle from a Non-Equilibrium Steady State
• Spatio-Orientational Decoherence of Nanoparticles

Cited by in corpus (5)

• Theory for Cavity Cooling of Levitated Nanoparticles via Coherent Scattering: Master Equation Approach
• Cavity Optomechanics in a Levitated Helium Drop
• Entangling levitated nanoparticles by coherent scattering
• Quantum Angular Momentum Diffusion of Rigid Bodies
• Quantum calculation of feedback cooling a laser levitated nanoparticle in the shot-noise-dominant regime