Observation of cooperatively enhanced atomic dipole forces from NV centers in optically trapped nanodiamonds

Abstract

Since the early work by Ashkin in 1970, optical trapping has become one of the most powerful tools for manipulating small particles, such as micron sized beads or single atoms. The optical trapping mechanism is based on the interaction energy of a dipole and the electric field of the laser light. In atom trapping, the dominant contribution typically comes from the allowed optical transition closest to the laser wavelength, whereas for mesoscopic particles it is given by the bulk polarizability of the material. These two different regimes of optical trapping have coexisted for decades without any direct link, resulting in two very different contexts of applications: one being the trapping of small objects mainly in biological settings, the other one being dipole traps for individual neutral atoms in the field of quantum optics. Here we show that for nanoscale diamond crystals containing artificial atoms, so-called nitrogen vacancy (NV) color centers, both regimes of optical trapping can be observed at the same time even in a noisy liquid environment. For wavelengths in the vicinity of the zero-phonon line transition of the color centers, we observe a significant modification ($10\%$) of the overall trapping strength. Most remarkably, our experimental findings suggest that owing to the large number of artificial atoms, collective effects greatly contribute to the observed trapping strength modification. Our approach adds the powerful atomic-physics toolbox to the field of nano-manipulation.