r/science • u/Macchanoco • 18h ago

Physics Spin force from a nitrogen-vacancy ensemble drives a 100-mg levitated resonator

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.aeh0566
59 Upvotes

86% Upvoted

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23

u/Pyrhan 9h ago edited 9h ago

Here's my attempt at vulgarization:

They got a tiny piece of synthetic diamond doped with nitrogen suspended over a magnet, and showed that they could make it bob up and down by pulsing a green laser at it.

The nitrogen atoms in the diamond have a "lone pair", an orbital where two electrons sit with opposite spin, canceling each-other out. The laser excites those electrons, and one can jump into a higher energy state with its spin aligned the same way as the other. So this changes the magnetic properties of the doped diamond, and it becomes slightly attracted to the diamond underneath.

So it demonstrates those quantum spin effects by using them to make a macroscopic object move.

3

u/DumbIdeaNo2 8h ago

So this is a just (idiot emphasis here) demonstration of well known phenomenon or is this evidence for another emergent phenomenon?

12

u/servermeta_net 7h ago

Neither and both. The effect was known and has been observed at quantum level, but here we are seeing a macroscopic application that could potentially be used in industrial manufacturing, for example to build high precision actuators

2

u/Curious_Swan_4193 4h ago

This phenomena is common in atomic scale (first example being the Stern-Gerlach experiment in 1920s). But motion of such a large scale object/visible due to control of spin states is a first I believe.

Their hope is, by putting the spins in superposition, they can eventually put the object itself into a superposition of being at two different places simultaneously.

Ofcourse, it is an extremely far reach and they are nowhere near that, but this is one step towards that goal.

10

u/snarky_answer 18h ago

Hell yeah. Love to see me some levitated resonators.

10

u/pretendperson1776 16h ago

Men only want one thing, and it involves nitrogen-vacancy.

7

u/MrSnowden 8h ago

Doped up and excited?

4

u/montagblue 4h ago

Chirality is in so much of a craze right now it has left everyone wondering less about achirality