Nanosphere at the quantum limit Toggle navigation Nanosphere at the quantum limit Sensors could be immensely improved with nanospheres ETH Zürich A glass sphere a hundred nanometres in diameter (green dot in the centre of the picture) is made to hover by a tightly focused laser beam. Zoom in ").addClass("image-details"); var $imageCaption = $("").addClass("image-caption").text(caption); $imageDetails.append($imageCaption); element = $(" ").append('×').append($imageHolder).append($imageDetails)[0]; img.draggable = false; if (title) { element.title = title; } if (altText) { element.alt = altText; } $(img).on("load error", callbackWrapper); img.src = url; return element; } Researchers at ETH Zurich have trapped a tiny sphere measuring a hundred nanometres using laser light and slowed down its motion to the lowest quantum mechanical state. Based on this, one can study quantum effects in macroscopic objects and build extremely sensitive sensors.