An optical parametric amplifier is build for a 1550 nm laser. It will be used in various optomechanical experiments.

The goal is to use laser radiation pressure to levitate a mirror. To achieve this a monopot design is applied.

We use laser radiation pressure rather than a traditional mechanical actuator in order to drive the oscillation of a micron sized cantilever as used in atomic force microscopy. We saw that the laser illumination causes a deflection not only via radiation pressure but also via thermal expansion because of residual absorption. By comparing experimental data against a finite-element simulation we are investigating all contributing effects, leading to the expansion.