Colloquia & Guest Speakers

Quantum Control of Levitated Nanoparticles

Lukas Novotny, Full Professor at the Department of Information and Technology and Electrical Engineering

Monday, April 21, 2025
4:30 p.m.

Presented in Goergen 101 and on Zoom

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Abstract

Two ends of metal tubes coupled together with another piece.
Figure 1: Photograph of light scattered from a laser-trapped nanoparticle.

We use levitated nanoparticles to explore the quantum-classical boundary and to in- vestigate the limits of measurement precision. To this end, we utilize the many degrees of freedom of these nanoparticles, includingtranslations, librations, rotations and vibrations. I will report on our recent progress in controlling these modes and discuss applications in sensing and metrology.

Biography

Headshot of Lukas Novotny.
Lukas Novotny

Lukas Novotny is a Professor of Photonics at ETH ZuŸrich, Switzerland. Before joining ETH in 2012 he was on the faculty of the Institute of Optics at the University of Rochester. His research is focused on light-matter interactions on the nanometer scale.  Novotny is the author of the textbook ``Principles of Nano-Optics" and a Fellow of Optica and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.