Related papers: Optical tweezers with enhanced efficiency based on…
We present experimental evidence of plasmonic-enhanced optical tweezers, of polystyrene beads in deionized water in the vicinity of metal-coated nanostructures. The optical tweezers operate with a continuous wave (CW) near-infrared laser.…
A nanofiber-based optical tweezer is demonstrated. Trapping is achieved by combining attractive near-field optical gradient forces with repulsive electrostatic forces. Silica-coated Fe$_2$O$_3$ nanospheres of 300 diameter are trapped as…
Plasmonic optical tweezers are a ubiquitous tool for the precise manipulation of nanoparticles and biomolecules at low photon flux, while femtosecond-laser optical tweezers can probe the nonlinear optical properties of the trapped species…
Laser trapping near the surface of a nanostructured substrate is demonstrated. Stable microbubbles with radii of 1-20micrometers have been created and manipulated with sub-micron precision by a focused laser beam in an immersion oil…
Optical manipulation has attracted remarkable interest owing to its versatile and non-invasive nature. However, conventional optical trapping remains inefficient for the nanoscopic world. The emergence of plasmonics in recent years has…
Optical tweezers is a very well-established technique that has developed into a standard tool for trapping and manipulating micron and submicron particles with great success in the last decades. Although the nature of light enforces…
The ability of metallic nanostructures to confine light at the sub-wavelength scale enables new perspectives and opportunities in the field of nanotechnology. Making use of this unique advantage, nano-optical trapping techniques have been…
Plasmonic nano-optical tweezers enable the non-invasive manipulation of nano-objects under low illumination intensities, and have become a powerful tool for nanotechnology and biophysics. However, measuring the trap stiffness of…
An original optical tweezers using one or two chemically etched fiber nano-tips is developed. We demonstrate optical trapping of 1 micrometer polystyrene spheres at optical powers down to 2 mW. Harmonic trap potentials were found in the…
Optical tweezers enable non-contact trapping of micro-scale objects using light. Despite their widespread use, it is currently not known how tightly it is possible to three-dimensionally trap micro-particles with a given photon budget.…
We present a novel approach to determine the optical properties of materials in the nanoscale range using optical tweezers (OT). Fluorescent polymer-based nanostructures (pdots) are optically trapped in a Gaussian beam OT and the trap…
The manipulation of microparticles using optical forces has led to many applications in the life and physical sciences. To extend optical trapping towards the nano-regime, in this work we demonstrate trapping of single nanoparticles in…
Optical trapping has proven to be a valuable experimental technique for precisely controlling small dielectric objects. However, due to their very nature, conventional optical traps are diffraction limited and require high intensities to…
We experimentally demonstrate stable trapping and controlled manipulation of silica microspheres in a structured optical beam consisting of a dark focus surrounded by light in all directions - the so-called Dark Focus Tweezer. Results from…
Interferometry can completely redirect light, providing the potential for strong and controllable optical forces. However, small particles do not naturally act like interferometric beamsplitters, and the optical scattering from them is not…
Optically-levitated nanoparticles in vacuum offer a pristine platform for high-quality mechanical oscillators, enabling a wide range of precision measurements and quantum technologies. A key performance metric in such systems is the…
Near-field patterns of light provide a way to optically trap, deliver and sort single nanoscopic particles in a wide variety of applications in nanophotonics, microbiology and nanotechnology. Using rigorous electromagnetic theory, we…
Non-invasive and ultra-accurate optical manipulation of nanometer objects has recently gained a growing interest as a powerful enabling tool in nanotechnology and biophysics. In this context, Self-Induced Back-Action (SIBA) trapping in…
We propose a novel way to trap and manipulate nano-objects above a dielectric substrate using an apertureless near-field probe. A combination of evanescent illumination and light scattering at the probe apex is used to shape the optical…
We present experimental techniques and results related to the optimization and characterization of our nanofiber-based atom trap [Vetsch et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 104, 203603 (2010)]. The atoms are confined in an optical lattice which is…