Abstract
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 fundamental questions in quantum mechanics, gravity, and other weak forces. While the optical trapping of nanoparticles has emerged as the prototypical levitated optomechanical system, it is not without problems due to the heating from the high optical intensity required, particularly when combined with a high vacuum environment. Here we investigate a magneto-gravitational trap in ultra-high vacuum. In contrast to optical trapping, we create an entirely passive trap for diamagnetic particles by utilizing the magnetic field generated by permanent magnets and the gravitational interaction. We demonstrate cooling the center of mass motion of a trapped silica microsphere from ambient temperature to an effective temperature near or below one milliKelvin in two degrees of freedom by optical feedback damping.
Highlights
Following demonstrations of ground state cooling in clamped mechanical resonator systems [1, 2, 3], optical trapping of nanoparticles in vacuum has emerged as a promising technique for pursuing fundamental tests of quantum mechanics [4, 5, 6, 7, 8], sensing of weak forces [9, 10, 11, 12], and searches for new physics [13, 14, 15]
We demonstrate trapping of a silica microsphere in a magneto-gravitational trap in a room-temperature ultra-high vacuum (UHV) environment and cooling the center-of-mass (COM) motion by feedback of the detected movement
We report significant cooling of the mechanical motion in both the vertical (y) and axial (z) directions by feedback of the detected motion
Summary
Following demonstrations of ground state cooling in clamped mechanical resonator systems [1, 2, 3], optical trapping of nanoparticles in vacuum has emerged as a promising technique for pursuing fundamental tests of quantum mechanics [4, 5, 6, 7, 8], sensing of weak forces [9, 10, 11, 12], and searches for new physics [13, 14, 15]. We demonstrate trapping of a silica microsphere in a magneto-gravitational trap in a room-temperature ultra-high vacuum (UHV) environment and cooling the center-of-mass (COM) motion by feedback of the detected movement. The magneto-gravitational trap utilizes the weak diamagnetism in many common materials, including silica. This trapping mechanism is completely passive; trapped particles can remain confined indefinitely without any external feedback mechanisms. This allows for the use of very low light level illumination, avoiding the heating and instability problems that may occur in optical trapping experiments as residual gas pressure is reduced [10, 11, 16, 17]
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