Rotation of Optically Levitated Microspheres: Techniques for Enhanced Sensitivity Force Sensing
Abstract
The proposed work will demonstrate and study the control of the rotational degrees of freedom of optically levitated dielectric microspheres in high vacuum. Most work to date using levitated microspheres has focused on control and measurement of their center-of-mass motion, while their rotational motion at pressures <10^-3 mbar remains unexplored. During the course of this work, the rotational degrees of freedom of optically trapped microspheres will be controlled using a variety of mechanisms: 1) birefringent microspheres will be fabricated and their rotation controlled with circularly polarized light; 2) dielectricmicrospheres will be rotated using their permanent dipole moments; and 3) ferromagnetic microspheres will be controlled with an external magnetic field. In addition, the transfer of optical orbital angular momentum to microspheres in high vacuum from non-Gaussian laser modes will be studied. By combining these techniques for manipulating the rotational motion of microspheres withpreviously demonstrated technologies for cooling and controlling the center-of-mass motion of the spheres, the rotational motion can be studied at pressures <10^-7 mbar. The expected dissipation for the rotational degrees of freedom of the microspheres is extremely low in high vacuum, leading to predicted damping times due to residual gas alone that are longer than 1 month. Such ultra-low dissipation rotational motion would have applications to precision forceand inertial sensing, and could enable ???micro-gyroscopes??? with extreme precision.
Document Details
- Document Type
- DoD Grant Award
- Publication Date
- Jul 10, 2018
- Source ID
- N000141812409
Entities
People
- David Moore
Organizations
- Office of Naval Research
- United States Navy
- Yale University