Feedback stabilization of a nanoparticle at the intensity minimum of an optical double-well potential

• Feedback control to confine a levitated nanoparticle at the unstable apex of an optical double-well potential. • Nonlinear dynamics with stochastic perturbations, noisy measurements, and slow experimental drifts. • Efficient LQG controller implemented on an FPGA with a 32 ns sampling rate. In this work, we develop and analyze adaptive feedback control strategies to stabilize and confine a nanoparticle at the unstable intensity minimum of an optical double-well potential. The resulting stochastic optimal control problem for a noise-driven mechanical particle in a nonlinear optical potential must account for unavoidable experimental imperfections such as measurement nonlinearities and slow drifts of the optical setup. To address these issues, we simplify the model in the vicinity of the unstable equilibrium and employ indirect adaptive control techniques to dynamically follow changes in the potential landscape. Our approach leads to a simple and efficient Linear Quadratic Gaussian (LQG) controller that can be implemented on fast and cost-effective FPGAs, ensuring accessibility and reproducibility. We demonstrate that this strategy successfully tracks the intensity minimum and significantly reduces the nanoparticle’s residual state variance, effectively lowering its center-of-mass temperature. While conventional optical traps rely on confining optical forces in the light field at the intensity maxima, trapping at intensity minima mitigates absorption heating, which is crucial for advanced quantum experiments. Since LQG control naturally extends into the quantum regime, our results provide a promising pathway for future experiments on quantum state preparation beyond the current absorption heating limitation, like matter-wave interference and tests of the quantum-gravity interface.