Trapping of a microsphere pendulum through cavity-enhanced optical forces

Optical forces resulting from evanescently coupled microcavities can produce remarkable mechanical effects on micro- and nanoscale systems. Excitation of the symmetric and antisymmetric modes of the interacting whispering gallery modes (WGM) leads to significant attractive and repulsive forces. Here, we propose a method to spatially trap a microspherical resonator pendulum via the optical forces produced by two simultaneously excited WGMs of a photonic molecule, comprising two microspherical cavities. We discuss how the cavity-enhanced optical force generated in the photonic molecule can create an optomechanical potential of about 5 eV deep and 10 pm wide, which can be used to trap the pendulum at any given equilibrium position by a simple choice of laser frequencies. This result presents opportunities for very precise all-optical self-alignment of microsystems. Frequency splitting of a co-resonant mode from two similar-sized microspheres was observed experimentally and the mechanical characteristics of a microsphere pendulum were also studied.