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Gyroscopically Stabilized Quantum Spin Rotors

Vanessa Wachter1,2, Silvia Viola Kusminskiy2,3, Gabriel Hétet4, and Benjamin A. Stickler1

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Phys. Rev. Lett. 136, 073604 – Published 18 February, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/zjpt-whpf

Abstract

Recent experiments demonstrate all-electric spinning of levitated nanodiamonds with embedded nitrogen-vacancy spins. Here, we argue that such gyroscopically stabilized spin rotors offer a promising platform for probing and exploiting quantum spin-rotation coupling of particles hosting a single spin degree of freedom. Specifically, we derive the effective Hamiltonian describing how an embedded spin affects the rotation of rapidly revolving quantum rotors due to the Einstein-de Haas and Barnett effects, which we use to devise experimental protocols for observing this coupling in state-of-the-art experiments. This will open the door for future exploitations of quantum spin rotors for superposition experiments with massive objects.

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Phys. Rev. Lett. 136, 073604– Published 18 February, 2026
  • Received 14 April 2025
  • Accepted 26 January 2026
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