Research report 2019 - Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light

Light can move things

Authors
Michael Reitz, Christian Sommer and Claudiu Genes
Departments
Max-Planck-Institut für Physik des Lichts, Erlangen
Summary
Light particles (photons) normally have very little energy and momentum. Nevertheless, they can be successfully used to control the movement of various objects, from molecules to the vibrations of small mirrors or membranes. We are developing theoretical methods to show how light can be used to read oscillations of nuclei in molecules or to cool the motion of photonic crystal mirrors or membranes down to near their quantum ground state.

For the full text, see the German version.

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