Electro-Optical Metalens for Near-Surface Cooling of a Levitated Particle
Advanced levitation optomechanics in the quantum regime requires sophisticated quantumengineered protocols operating at shorter length and time scales, demanding an increasing control over both optical and electrical potentials. Integrated chip-scale platforms offer a natural route toward such control. Here, we demonstrate optical levitation in vacuum using a miniaturized hybrid electro-optical metalens. Motion control is achieved using a high numerical aperture metalens combined with electrical active feedback using planar electrodes, enabling cooling to low phonon occupations. Reheating measurements enable us to rule out any significant influence from electric field noise; an encouraging result for the future development of on-chip levitation platforms operating close to surfaces. This compact integrated platform facilitates the precise manipulation and control of levitated nanoparticles while laying the ground toward exploiting the full capacity of metaoptics to engineer complex optical potentials, marking a significant step forward in technologies for quantum levitation optomechanics.