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Subfemtonewton Force Spectroscopy at the Thermal Limit in Liquids

Optics 2016-07-06 v1

Abstract

We demonstrate thermally limited force spectroscopy using a probe formed by a dielectric microsphere optically trapped in water near a dielectric surface. We achieve force resolution below 1 fN in 100 s, corresponding to a 2 {\AA} rms displacement of the probe. Our measurement combines a calibrated evanescent wave particle tracking technique and a lock-in detection method. We demonstrate the accuracy of our method by measurement of the height-dependent force exerted on the probe by an evanescent wave, the results of which are in agreement with Mie theory calculations.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1606.01389,
  title  = {Subfemtonewton Force Spectroscopy at the Thermal Limit in Liquids},
  author = {Lulu Liu and Simon Kheifets and Vincent Ginis and Federico Capasso},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1606.01389},
  year   = {2016}
}

Comments

5 pages; 4 figures