36 lines
3.3 KiB
Markdown
36 lines
3.3 KiB
Markdown
---
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title: "NAMIQOS: Nanoparticle Manipulation and Integration for Quantum Optomechanical Systems"
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linkTitle: NAMIQOS
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funder: "EPSRC"
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funder_url: "https://www.ukri.org/councils/epsrc/"
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weight: 40
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---
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**NAMIQOS** is a fully-funded 3 year PhD project funded through the EPSRC Quantum Technologies DTP.
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The project will run from October 2024 to September 2027.
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NAMIQOS builds on the group's earlier work on backaction suppression using reflective boundaries, reported in Rafał Gajewski's PhD thesis and in [Gajewski & Bateman, *Phys. Rev. Research* **7**, 023041 (2025)](https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevResearch.7.023041).
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## Background
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Optical forces arise when light, which has no mass yet carries momentum, is deflected through interaction with a material object. Lasers of power $\sim 100\,\text{mW}$ focused to a spot $\sim10\,\text{um}$ exert significant forces on objects $\sim100\,\text{nm}$ across.
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These nanoparticles can be levitated, in vacuum, and manipulated by modulating the optical field.
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Interferometric measurement and active feedback techniques allow these systems to approach quantum limits of position sensitivity.
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This research is part of the field of levitated optomechanics. Since the seminal demonstration of feedback cooling to sub-Kelvin temperatures [Gieseler 2012], the field has seen rapid and intense research, with recent achievements including cooling to the quantum-mechanical ground-state with optical cavities [Delić 2020] and in a cryogenic environment [Tebbenjohanns 2021].
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This project will explore development of practical devices based on levitated optomechanics including engineered isolation of specific mechanical modes and microfabrication techniques to source, prepare, and levitate nanoparticles in a compact, robust device. Microfabrication will be explored in collaboration with Swansea University's Centre for Integrative Semiconductor Materials [CISM]. CISM is a new £30M research and innovation facility on Swansea University Bay Campus which brings together semiconductor and advanced materials platforms and offers manufacturing grade ISO-qualified clean rooms for process development, backend materials integration and packaging capabilities, and access to advanced characterisation and analysis.
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The student will benefit from integration with the nascent Swansea Doctoral Training Initiative UK-SIFS: UK Semiconductor Industry Future Skills (CISM, Meredith) which will create a vibrant, multi-disciplinary cohort experience and provide highly practical training and links with industrial partners.
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Development of the robust platform provides a route towards quantum devices, where the particle is treated as a quantum mechanical object subject to superposition and decoherence. Establishing capability in this classical space is a necessary step towards realising fully quantum-limited devices, for which there are a number of exciting theoretical proposals in accelerometry with predicted sensitivities $\sim10^{-17}\,\text{g}/\sqrt{\text{Hz}}$ [Pontin 2018].
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### References
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- [Gieseler 2012] Gieseler, Deutsch, Quidant, Novotny; PRL 109 103603 (2012)
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- [Delić 2020] Delić et al.; Science 10.1126/science.aba3993 (2020)
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- [Pontin 2018] Pontin et al.; New J. Phys. 20 023017 (2018)
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- [Tebbenjohanns 2021] Tebbenjohanns et al.; Nature 595 378-382 (2021)
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- [CISM] [Centre for Integrative Semiconductor Materials](https://www.cism-swansea-semiconductors.co.uk/)
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