Quantum spins just moved something you can actually see — a world first from Okinawa

Physicists at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology have done something never seen before: they moved a levitating, centimetre-wide diamond — about 100 milligrams, heavy enough for gravity to matter — using nothing but the force of electron quantum spin. Shining a green laser on the diamond's nitrogen-vacancy centres nudged it measurably downward. The object is eight to nine orders of magnitude more massive than anything moved by spin before. The peer-reviewed result, in Science Advances, led by PhD student Anshuman Nayak and Professor Jason Twamley, opens a path to ultra-precise sensors for dark matter and gravitational waves.