NPA Seminar, Alex Fieguth, Stanford University, “Probing Fundamental Physics With Levitated Force Sensors”
Microspheres have been the first objects optically levitated by Arthur Ashkin in the 1970s. While the technology itself was successfully used to trap atoms to explore new physics, the actual utilization of microspheres and other macroscopic objects as a useful tool for physics has emerged in the recent years. The unique properties of those levitated objects allows to deploy them as sensors with unmatched properties and advantages.