A hybrid quantum system formed by trapping atoms in the near-field of a levitated nanosphere

Abstract

Near-field, radially symmetric optical potentials centred around a levitated nanosphere can be used for sympathetic cooling and for creating a bound nanosphere-atom system analogous to a large molecule. We demonstrate that the long range, Coulomb-like potential produced by a single blue detuned field increases the collisional cross-section by eight orders of magnitude, allowing fast sympathetic cooling of a trapped nanosphere to microKelvin temperatures using cold atoms. By using two optical fields to create a combination of repulsive and attractive potentials, we demonstrate that a cold atom can be bound to a nanosphere creating a new levitated hybrid quantum system suitable for exploring quantum mechanics with massive particles.

6 pages, 5 figures

References in corpus (14)

• A Spin Entanglement Witness for Quantum Gravity
• Motional Quantum Ground State of a Levitated Nanoparticle from Room Temperature
• Cold Damping of an Optically Levitated Nanoparticle to micro-Kelvin Temperatures
• Feedback Cooling of a Single Neutral Atom
• Simultaneous cooling of all six degrees of freedom of an optically levitated nanoparticle by elliptic coherent scattering
• Sympathetic cooling and squeezing of two co-levitated nanoparticles
• Cold atoms as a coolant for levitated optomechanical systems
• All-optical sub-Kelvin sympathetic cooling of a levitated microsphere in vacuum
• 3D sympathetic cooling and detection of levitated nanoparticles
• Role of rotations in Stern-Gerlach interferometry with massive objects
• Magic wavelengths for the $2{}^{3}S\to 2{}^{1}S$ transition in helium
• Impact of Casimir-Polder interaction on Poisson-spot diffraction at a dielectric sphere
• Simulation of sympathetic cooling an optically levitated magnetic nanoparticle via coupling to a cold atomic gas
• Creating atom-nanoparticle quantum superpositions

Cited by in corpus (1)

• Roto-translational optomechanics