Transfer of a levitating nanoparticle between optical tweezers

M Calamai,F Marin,A Ranfagni

doi:10.1063/5.0024432

Abstract

We demonstrate and characterize the transfer of a levitating silica nanosphere between two optical tweezers at low pressure. Both optical traps are mounted on the heads of optical fibers and placed on translation stages in vacuum chambers. Our setup allows us to physically separate the particle loading environment from the experimental chamber, where the second tweezer can position the particle inside a high finesse optical cavity. The separation prevents from spoiling the cavity mirrors and the chamber cleanliness during the particle loading phase. Our system provides a very reliable and simply reproducible protocol for preparing cavity optomechanics experiments with levitating nanoparticles, opening the way to systematic studies of quantum phenomena and easing the realization of sensing devices.

Highlights

To optically trap a neutral nanoparticle, a laser beam is tightly focused in a chamber in the presence of gas containing suspended particles
To implement cavity optomechanics experiments, it is necessary to place the levitating particle into the region defined by a field mode of a high finesse optical cavity with sub-micrometric precision
The trap is loaded in the first chamber using scitation.org/journal/adv a nebulizer, the whole tweezer, mounted on micrometric positioners in an extensible arm, is moved to the second chamber, and the particle is delivered to the stationary wave of an optical cavity

Summary

Introduction

To optically trap a neutral nanoparticle, a laser beam is tightly focused in a chamber in the presence of gas containing suspended particles. A possibility is to load the particle on the optical tweezer in the first chamber and transfer it to a cleaner environment containing the optical cavity and the positioner.

Results

Conclusion