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 Karl Franzens University Graz

Graz University of Technology 

Levitated optomechanics with rotating nanoparticles
Dr. Benjamin Stickler
Theoretische Quantenphysik, Universität Duisburg-Essen
17:00 - 18:00 Tuesday 30 October 2018 KFU HS 5.01

Levitating nanoscale particles in a laser field and optically cooling them into the quantum regime offers an attractive route towards fundamental tests of quantum mechanics and ultra-sensitive sensors. As demonstrated recently, the interaction between the nanoparticle and the light field can be increased by using rod-shaped objects instead of spheres because the former tend to align with the field polarization [1-3]. In this talk I will present the quantum theory of nanorotors interacting with laser fields [4] and ambient environments [5] and argue that cooling the rotation of aspherical nanoparticles into the deep quantum regime opens the door for the observation of macroscopic orientational quantum revivals [6], a complete recurrence of its initial orientation after integer multiples of the revival time.

[1] Kuhn, Asenbaum, Kosloff, Sclafani, Stickler, Nimmrichter, Hornberger, Cheshnovsky, Patolsky, and Arndt, Nano Lett. 15 5604 (2015)
[2] Hoang, Ma, Ahn, Bang, Robicheaux, Yin, and Li, Phys. Rev. Lett. 117 123604 (2016)
[3] Kuhn, Stickler, Kosloff, Patolsky, Hornberger, Arndt, and Millen, Nat. Commun. 8 1670 (2017)
[4] Stickler, Nimmrichter, Martinetz, Kuhn, Arndt and Hornberger, Phys. Rev. A 94 033818 (2016)
[5] Stickler, Schrinski, and Hornberger, Phys. Rev. Lett. 121, 040401 (2018).
[6] Stickler, Papendell, Kuhn, Millen, Arndt, and Hornberger, arXiv:1803.01778 (2018)