Spin-cooling of the motion of a trapped diamond

Tom Delord, Paul Huillery, Louis Nicolas, Gabriel Hétet

 Nature volume 580, pages 56–59 – Published 23 March 2020

Tremendous progress have been made in quantum mechanics using the mechanical forces that light can apply on massive objects. Some studies also suggest that forces induced by spins in a solid state could be employed towards that same goal.
In this paper, we observe a spin-dependent torque on a diamond levitating in an electrostatic trap using the spin of the few billions of NV centers contained in the diamond. We could then further demonstrate that the spins can cool down the motion of the diamond.