Sub-micron force detection using optically-cooled levitated microspheres

Published

September 3, 2010

Author(s)

Andrew Geraci, Scott B. Papp, John E. Kitching

Abstract

We propose an experiment using optically trapped and cooled dielectric microspheres for the detection of short-range forces. The center-of-mass motion of a microsphere trapped in vacuum can experience extremely low dissipation and quality factors of 10¹², leading to yoctoNewton force sensitivity. Trapping the sphere in an optical field enables positioning at less than 1 υm from a surface, a regime where exotic new forces may exist. We expect that the proposed system could advance the search for non-Newtonian gravity forces via an enhanced sensitivity of 10⁵ -10⁷ over current experiments at the micron length scale. Moreover, our system may be useful for characterizing other short-range physics such as Casimir forces.

Citation

Physical Review

Volume

105

Pub Type

Journals

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Keywords

Casimir force, cavity cooling, non-Newtonian gravity, optical trapping, optomechanics

Citation

Geraci, A. , Papp, S. and Kitching, J. (2010), Sub-micron force detection using optically-cooled levitated microspheres, Physical Review, [online], https://tsapps.nist.gov/publication/get_pdf.cfm?pub_id=905784 (Accessed October 24, 2025)