Transfer of a levitating nanoparticle between optical tweezers

Abstract

We demonstrate and characterize the transfer of a levitating silica nanosphere between two optical tweezers at low pressure. Both optical traps are mounted on the heads of optical fibers and placed on translation stages in vacuum chambers. Our setup allows us to physically separate the particle loading environment from the experimental chamber, where the second tweezer can position the particle inside a high finesse optical cavity. The separation prevents from spoiling the cavity mirrors and the chamber cleanliness during the particle loading phase. Our system provides a very reliable and simply reproducible protocol for preparing cavity optomechanics experiments with levitating nanoparticles, opening the way to systematic studies of quantum phenomena and easing the realization of sensing devices.