Levitated Nanoparticles have received much attention for their potential to perform quantum mechanical experiments even at room temperature. However, even in the regime where the particle dynamics are purely classical, there is a lot of interesting physics that can be explored. Here we review the application of levitated nanoparticles as a new experimental platform to explore stochastic thermodynamics in small systems.
Keywords: Brownian motion; fluctuation relations; micro engines; nanoparticles; optical levitation; optical manipulation; optical trapping; stochastic thermodynamics.