An optical centrifuge for levitated nanoparticles

We describe the creation of an optical centrifuge for nanorotors formed by anisotropic nanoparticles levitated within an optical tweezer for the study of non-classical rotational motion. We also report on the experimental realization of the centrifuge enabled by a fast in-line polarization controller. This approach to the creation of well-defined rotational velocities is also compared to rapid switching between linear and elliptically polarized fields using the same polarization controller.