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optomechanics

number of breaks: 4

showing 1-4 of 4 breaks

A crystalline silicon string played with hours-long sustain

When you tension a guitar string, you change its resonant frequencies and tune the pitch of the notes you can play on it. Similarly, a nanoscale string will perform faster oscillations (in the radiofrequency, megahertz band) by increasing the tension. However, when the aspect ratio... click to read more

  • Alberto Beccari | Doctoral student at Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL)
Views 1849
Reading time 3.5 min
published on Feb 17, 2023
Cooled to the Quantum Realm

Levitation of objects sounds like magic, but it is precisely what Arthur Ashkin's optical tweezer won the Nobel Prize for in 2018. An optical tweezer amounts to an intense laser that focuses down to a very small point. Optical tweezers trap an object put at... click to read more

  • Kahan Dare | PhD Student at Vienna Center for Quantum Science and Technology, Faculty of Physics, University of Vienna, Austria
  • Manuel Reisenbauer | PhD Student at Vienna Center for Quantum Science and Technology, Faculty of Physics, University of Vienna, Austria
  • Uroš Delić | Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Vienna Center for Quantum Science and Technology, Faculty of Physics, University of Vienna, Austria
Views 3841
Reading time 2.5 min
published on Nov 6, 2020
Silencing a quantum drum

To a classical physicist, there is no fundamental limit to how well you can measure something. A classical object, for example, always exists in a well-defined position; if you want to know that position with better accuracy, you simply build a better microscope. The story... click to read more

  • David Mason | Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark
  • Massimiliano Rossi | PhD student at Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark
  • Albert Schliesser | Professor at Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark
Views 10228
Reading time 4 min
published on Feb 27, 2019
Creating the world’s fastest rotating object

Fighter jet aircrafts need to be fast. It therefore appears intuitive to make their turbines spin at the highest rotation rates possible. Following this approach, one will encounter an unpleasant surprise. At rotation rates around 1000 revolutions per second, the turbine blades start to disintegrate,... click to read more

  • Rene Reimann | Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Photonics Laboratory, ETH Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland
Views 6818
Reading time 4 min
published on Jan 21, 2019