Paper in Communications Physics

One of the main goals of our Unit is the investigation of levitated objects to control their motion to reach the quantum regime. If one can engineer a non-classical state of motion of a massive levitated object one enters into a completely new realm of physics which never has been explored before. Such large objects, when in a quantum superposition, can act as inertial sensors, sensing gravity and acceleration and torques. Such sensors are very useful for navigation and mineral exploration. However they are also fundamentally interesting to explore the boundary between quantum mechanics and gravity as these massive objects make their own gravity.

In this work we asked the question, in diamagnetic levitation, can one engineer a moving levitated object - which is a electrical conductor, which generates no eddy currents via the motion, and thus suffers no motional damping - so you can reach ultra-low damping rates. This study - by PhD student Daehee Kim, Postdoc Shilu Tian, Intern students Breno Calderoni and Cristina Sastre Jackimska, and collaborator Prof James Downes from Australia - demonstrated just this with the rotation of a levitated graphite disk. If you want to read more have a look at his cool press release. The journal thought our results were cool too and decided to put our image on the cover for the month of Nov 2025!