Abstract (eng)
Optically levitated nano spheres show great prospects for the goal of preparing mesoscopic objects in their quantum mechanical ground state. This requires to trap the particles at pressures below 10^-7mBar, and hence sophisticated loading mechanisms that comply with an ultra high vacuum (UHV) environment. In (Grass, 2013) it is shown, that hollow core photonic crystal fibers (HCPCF) do not only support the trapping and transport of nano particles, but can also be used to bridge pressure differences of nine orders of magnitude, thereby making them a promising candidate for an UHV compatible loading mechanism.
The work in this thesis continues the efforts in that direction. So far the HCPCF loading scheme is limited by the fact, that due to up to now unknown reasons, the particles are lost during the evacuation at pressures around 1mBar. Active cooling of the particle motion based on parametric feedback, is known to be a working countermeasure and is what we set out to implement in our loading scheme. En route to this, we successfully demonstrate a three dimensional position readout of the particle motion inside the HCPCF, that is based on higher order guided modes. It turns out, that these modes can also have an interesting effect on the trapping potential, which is experimentally verified. In addition we discuss preliminary results on feedback cooling in one of the radial dimensions.