Optical trapping of high-aspect-ratio NaYF hexagonal prisms for kHz-MHz gravitational wave detectors

Understand

We present experimental results on optical trapping of Yb-doped $\beta-$NaYF sub-wavelength-thickness high-aspect-ratio hexagonal prisms with a micron-scale radius.

• The prisms are trapped in vacuum using an optical standing wave, oriented with the normal vector to their face along the beam propagation direction, and exhibit characteristic modes of three translational and two torsional degrees of freedom.
• The measured motional spectra are compared with numerical simulations.
• This plate-like geometry simultaneously enables trapping with low photon-recoil-heating, high mass, and high trap frequency, potentially leading to advances in high frequency gravitational wave searches in the Levitated Sensor Detector (LSD), currently under construction.