A microscope objective (right) focuses laser light to create the optical tweezers in which a nanosphere (tiny red dot in the centre of the image) is levitated. (Photograph: ETH Zurich / Erik Hebestreit and Vijay Jain)
Sensitive sensors must be isolated from their environment as much as possible to avoid disturbances. Scientists at ETH Zurich have now demonstrated how to remove from and add elementary charges to a nanosphere that can be used for measuring extremely weak forces. A tiny sphere and a laser beam inside of which it hovers as if by magic - with these simple ingredients Martin Frimmer and co-workers at the Photonics Laboratory of ETH Zurich have developed a highly sensitive sensor. In the future this device is expected to measure, amongst other things, extremely weak forces or electric fields very precisely. Now the researchers have taken a major step in that direction, as they write in a recently published scientific paper. Nanosphere in a laser beam. Martin Frimmer, a post-doctoral researcher in the group of ETH professor Lukas Novotny, explains the working principle of a sensor very plausibly: 'First I need to know how the object acting as a sensor is influenced by its environment.
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