Abstract
We report on rotating an optically trapped silica nanoparticle in vacuum by transferring spin angular momentum of light to the particle’s mechanical angular momentum. At sufficiently low damping, realized at pressures below , we observe rotation frequencies of single 100 nm particles exceeding 1 GHz. We find that the steady-state rotation frequency scales linearly with the optical trapping power and inversely with pressure, consistent with theoretical considerations based on conservation of angular momentum. Rapidly changing the polarization of the trapping light allows us to extract the pressure-dependent response time of the particle’s rotational degree of freedom.
- Received 29 March 2018
- Revised 10 May 2018
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.121.033602
© 2018 American Physical Society
Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)
Erratum
Erratum: GHz Rotation of an Optically Trapped Nanoparticle in Vacuum [Phys. Rev. Lett. 121, 033602 (2018)]
Fons van der Laan, René Reimann, Michael Doderer, Erik Hebestreit, Rozenn Diehl, Martin Frimmer, Dominik Windey, Felix Tebbenjohanns, and Lukas Novotny
Phys. Rev. Lett. 126, 159901 (2021)
Focus
The Fastest Spinners
Published 20 July 2018
Two teams report spinning nanoscale particles at more than 60 billion rpm, the fastest rotation of any object, with the potential to probe the quantum vacuum.
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