Optical levitation of nanodiamonds by doughnut beams in vacuum

摘要

Optically levitated nanodiamonds with nitrogenvacancy centers promise a high-quality hybrid spinoptomechanical system. However, the trapped nanodiamond absorbs energy from laser beams and causes thermal damage in vacuum. It is proposed here to solve the problem by trapping a composite particle (a nanodiamond core coated with a less absorptive silica shell) at the center of strongly focused doughnut-shaped laser beams. Systematical study on the trapping stability, heat absorption, and oscillation frequency concludes that the azimuthally polarized Gaussian beam and the linearly polarized Laguerre-Gaussian beam LG03 are the optimal choices. With our proposal, particles with strong absorption coefficients can be trapped without obvious heating and, thus, the spin-optomechanical system based on levitated nanodiamonds are made possible in high vacuum with the present experimental techniques.