BACKGROUND Levitation of large objects has become a widely used technique in science
and engineering, and the control of levitated nano-and micro-objects in vacuum has gained …

Optomechanics is concerned with the use of light to control mechanical objects. As a field, it
has been hugely successful in the production of precise and novel sensors, the …

The ability to accurately control the dynamics of physical systems by measurement and
feedback is a pillar of modern engineering. Today, the increasing demand for applied …

Heat engines convert thermal energy into mechanical work and generally involve a large
number of particles. We report the experimental realization of a single-atom heat engine. An …

Torque sensors such as the torsion balance enabled the first determination of the
gravitational constant by Henri Cavendish and the discovery of Coulomb's law. Torque …

The Carnot cycle imposes a fundamental upper limit to the efficiency of a macroscopic motor
operating between two thermal baths. However, this bound needs to be reinterpreted at …

Insights into complex phenomena in quantum matter can be gained from simulation
experiments with ultracold atoms, especially in cases where theoretical characterization is …

The momentum transfer between a photon and an object defines a fundamental limit for the
precision with which the object can be measured. If the object oscillates at a frequency Ω 0 …

Since their invention in 1986 by Arthur Ashkin and colleagues, optical tweezers have
become an essential tool in several fields of physics, spectroscopy, biology …

Motional control of levitated nanoparticles relies on either autonomous feedback via a cavity
or measurement-based feedback via external forces. Recent demonstrations of the …