Optically driven ultra-stable nanomechanical rotor

Stefan Kuhn*, Benjamin A. Stickler, Alon Kosloff, Fernando Patolsky, Klaus Hornberger, Markus Arndt, James Millen

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

102 Scopus citations

Abstract

Nanomechanical devices have attracted the interest of a growing interdisciplinary research community, since they can be used as highly sensitive transducers for various physical quantities. Exquisite control over these systems facilitates experiments on the foundations of physics. Here, we demonstrate that an optically trapped silicon nanorod, set into rotation at MHz frequencies, can be locked to an external clock, transducing the properties of the time standard to the rod's motion with a remarkable frequency stability f r/Δf r of 7.7 × 1011. While the dynamics of this periodically driven rotor generally can be chaotic, we derive and verify that stable limit cycles exist over a surprisingly wide parameter range. This robustness should enable, in principle, measurements of external torques with sensitivities better than 0.25 zNm, even at room temperature. We show that in a dilute gas, real-time phase measurements on the locked nanorod transduce pressure values with a sensitivity of 0.3%.

Original languageEnglish
Article number1670
JournalNature Communications
Volume8
Issue number1
DOIs
StatePublished - 1 Dec 2017

Funding

FundersFunder number
Israel Science Foundation
Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Horizon 2020
Austrian Science FundW 1210, P 27297
Horizon 2020 Framework Programme654532

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