Levitated Electromechanics

摘要：光学镊子已被用来捕获和检查广泛领域中的分子和原子粒子。使用类似的理论框架，我们建议只使用电场将粒子捕获到真空中，例如，消除了校正光子散射效应的需要，并允许我们在高真空条件下(传统光学镊子变得太不稳定的条件)探测效应。我们希望使用这项技术来检查量子行为，我们还在与BPSM研究小组的凯特琳·斯皮兰博士讨论创建生物过程能量景观的电场类似物的可能性。

Summary: Optical tweezers have been used to trap and examine molecular and atomic particles in a wide range of fields. Using a similar theoretical framework, we propose to trap particles in a vacuum using only electric fields, eliminating the need to correct for photon scattering effects, for example, and allowing us to probe effects in high vacuum conditions (conditions under which traditional optical tweezers become too unstable). We hope to use this technique to examine quantum behaviour, and we are also discussing the possibility of creating electric field analogues of the energy landscapes of biological processes with Dr Katelyn Spillane of the BPSM research group.