Scattering-Free Optical Levitation of a Cavity Mirror

TL;DR

This paper proposes a novel method to levitate a mirror using radiation pressure in a tripod cavity system, enabling stable optical trapping and manipulation for advanced optomechanics research.

Contribution

It introduces a new optical levitation scheme using a tripod cavity configuration that isolates the mirror and allows for coherent control of its state.

Findings

Identified stable trapping points through modeling of cavity resonances.

Demonstrated the feasibility of supporting a macroscopic mirror solely with optical fields.

Outlined potential applications in quantum state generation and gravitational sensing.

Abstract

We demonstrate the feasibility of levitating a small mirror using only radiation pressure. In our scheme, the mirror is supported by a tripod where each leg of the tripod is a Fabry-Perot cavity. The macroscopic state of the mirror is coherently coupled to the supporting cavity modes allowing coherent interrogation and manipulation of the mirror motion. The proposed scheme is an extreme example of the optical spring, where a mechanical oscillator is isolated from the environment and its mechanical frequency and macroscopic state can be manipulated solely through optical fields. We model the stability of the system and find a three-dimensional lattice of trapping points where cavity resonances allow for build up of optical field sufficient to support the weight of the mirror. Our scheme offers a unique platform for studying quantum and classical optomechanics and can potentially be used for precision gravitational field sensing and quantum state generation.