LÉVitation and Optical Interrogation of a Feedback-Cooled Nitrogen Vacancy Center in a Paul Trap

Lévitation of nanoparticles in optical or quadrupole traps is an elegant way to circumvent clamping losses that are an unavoidable limitation in other schemes of optomechanics. This unique feature of levitated optomechnics is foreseen to contribute to a better understanding of quantum decoherence at the mesoscopic scale as well as to lead to novel ultra-sensitive sensing schemes. Further possibilities for ground-breaking experiments are given by the fact that in addition to only operating with the center-of-mass of the trapped particle, internal degrees of freedom, such as spins or optical dipoles can be incorporated in the trapped nanoparticle.