Levitated Optomechanics with Meta-Atoms

TL;DR

This paper introduces a novel approach to levitated optomechanics by trapping high-permittivity dielectric particles supporting Mie resonances, enabling enhanced control, ground-state cooling, and new trapping configurations for nanoparticles.

Contribution

It demonstrates the feasibility of trapping and cooling silicon nanoparticles using meta-atom resonances, and proposes methods for tuning polarizability and trapping configurations.

Findings

Enhanced trap frequency and depth for silicon nanoparticles.

Feasibility of ground-state cooling in vacuum.

Ability to switch polarizability sign via laser detuning.

Abstract

We propose to introduce additional control in levitated optomechanics by trapping a meta-atom, i.e. a subwavelength and high-permittivity dielectric particle supporting Mie resonances. In particular, we theoretically demonstrate that optical levitation and center-of-mass ground-state cooling of silicon nanoparticles in vacuum is not only experimentally feasible but it offers enhanced performance over widely used silica particles, in terms of both trap frequency and trap depth. Moreover, we show that, by adjusting the detuning of the trapping laser with respect to the particle's resonance, the sign of the polarizability becomes negative, enabling levitation in the minimum of laser intensity e.g. at the nodes of a standing wave. The latter opens the door to trapping nanoparticles in the optical near-field combining red and blue-detuned frequencies, in analogy to two-level atoms, which is of interest for generating strong coupling to photonic nanostructures and short-distance force sensing.