Optical cold damping of neutral nanoparticles near the ground state in an optical lattice

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates optical feedback cooling of neutral nanoparticles in an optical lattice to near the ground state, achieving low occupation numbers through precise laser noise reduction and a novel neutralization method.

Contribution

It introduces a purely optical feedback cooling technique for neutral nanoparticles near the ground state, with improved position measurement accuracy and a reproducible neutralization process.

Findings

Achieved occupation number of 0.85±0.20 in cooling.

Reduced laser intensity noise to 6×10⁻⁸/Hz in 30-600 kHz band.

Developed a method for neutralizing nanoparticles at high vacuum.

Abstract

We propose and demonstrate purely optical feedback cooling of neutral nanoparticles in an optical lattice to an occupation number of $0.85\pm0.20$. The cooling force is derived from the optical gradients of displaced optical lattices produced with two sidebands on the trapping laser. To achieve highly accurate position observations required for cooling near the ground state, we reduce the laser intensity noise to a relative power noise of $\unit[6\times10^{-8}]{/Hz}$ in a frequency band of $\unit[30]{kHz}$ to $\unit[600]{kHz}$. We establish a reproducible method for neutralizing nanoparticles at high vacuum via a combination of discharging and irradiating an ultraviolet light. Our results form an important basis for the investigation of quantum mechanical properties of ultracold nanoparticles and are also useful for precision measurements with neutral nanoparticles.