Trapping of a microsphere pendulum resonator in an optical potential

摘要

We propose a method to spatially confine or corral the movements of a micropendulum via the optical forcesproduced by two simultaneously excited optical modes of a photonic molecule comprising two microsphericalcavities. We discuss how the cavity-enhanced optical force generated in the photonic molecule can create anoptomechanical potential of about 10 eV deep and 30 pm wide, which can be used to trap the pendulum at anygiven equilibrium position by a simple choice of laser frequencies. This result presents opportunities for veryprecise all-optical self-alignment of microsystems.