Abstract
The search for new gravity-like interactions at the sub-millimeter scale is a compelling area of research, with important implications for the understanding of classical gravity and its connections with quantum physics. We report improved constraints on Yukawa-type interactions in the \(10\,\mathrm {\mu m}\) regime using optically levitated dielectric microspheres as test masses. The search is performed, for the first time, sensing multiple spatial components of the force vector, and with sensitivity improved by a factor of \(\sim 100\) with respect to previous measurements using the same technique. The resulting upper limit on the strength of a hypothetical new force is \(10^7\) at a Yukawa range \(\lambda \simeq 5\;\mu\)m and close to \(10^6\) for \(\lambda \gtrsim 10\;\mu\)m. This result also advances our efforts to measure gravitational effects using micrometer-size objects, with important implications for embryonic ideas to investigate the quantum nature of gravity.
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The datasets used and/or analysed during the current study available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.
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Acknowledgements
We gratefully acknowledge early contributions of Akio Kawasaki (AIST, Japan), Alex Rider (Scitech, Boulder CO), and Qidong Wang (IME-CAS, Beijing). We thank Giovanni Ferraro and Emiliano Fratini (University of Florence, Italy) for help in understanding some characteristics of Stöber microspheres, and David Moore (Yale) for his feedback on the manuscript.
Funding
This work was supported by NSF grant number 2406999, ONR grant number N000142312600, and the Heising-Simons Foundation. Part of the work was performed at the Stanford Nano Shared Facilities (SNSF) which is supported by the NSF under award ECCS-2026822.
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G.V., A.F. and G.G. led the conceptualization, design and implementation of the experimental setup used in this work. Y.Z., C.B., J.H., M.L, and L.M. designed and constructed important subsystems. C.H. and G.V. led the data analysis, building on a framework developed by A.F., C.B., and N.P., and K.K. developed numerical simulations used to validate the results. C.J. and Z.W. provided valuable insights on various subsytems. All authors reviewed the manuscript.
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Venugopalan, G., Hardy, C.A., Kohn, K. et al. Optomechanical vector sensing of new forces at 6 micron separation. Sci Rep (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-026-35656-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-026-35656-6
