Related papers: Optical tweezers with enhanced efficiency based on…
We propose a new class of nanoscale electro-optical traps for neutral atoms. A prototype is the toroidal trap created by a suspended, charged carbon nanotube decorated with a silver nanosphere dimer. An illuminating laser field, blue…
Photonic nanojets have been brought into attention ten years ago for potential application in ultramicroscopy, because of its sub-wavelength resolution that can enhance detection and interaction with matter. For these novel applications…
Optical tweezers, formed by tightly focused propagating laser beams, offer the unique capability to trap and control microscopic particles over a broad size range. However, the diffraction inherent to propagating optical fields, limits the…
Optical trapping, also known as optical tweezing or optical levitation, is a technique that uses highly focused laser beams to manipulate micro- and nanoscopic particles. In optical traps driven by high-energy pulses, material non-linearity…
Plasmonic nano-tweezers use intense electric field gradients to generate optical forces able to trap nano-objects in liquids. However, part of the incident light is absorbed into the metal, and a supplementary thermophoretic force acting on…
Optical tweezers are highly versatile laser traps for neutral microparticles, with fundamental applications in physics and in single molecule cell biology. Force measurements are performed by converting the stiffness response to…
This paper reports on conceptual and experimental work towards the realization of plasmonic surface traps for cold atoms. The trapping mechanism is based on the combination of a repulsive and an attractive potential generated by evanescent…
In this article we explore the requirements for enabling high quality optically detected magnetic resonance (ODMR) spectroscopy in a conventional gradient force optical tweezers using nanodiamonds containing nitrogen-vacancy (NV$^{-}$)…
We report on the fabrication of two-dimensional periodic photonic nanostructures by nanoimprint lithography and dry etching, and their integration into a 1-{\mu}m-thin mono-crystalline silicon solar cell. Thanks to the periodic…
Precise control of particle positioning is desirable in many optical propulsion and sorting applications. Here, we develop an integrated platform for particle manipulation consisting of a combined optical nanofiber and optical tweezers…
Holographic optical tweezers use computer-generated holograms to create arbitrary three-dimensional configurations of single-beam optical traps useful for capturing, moving and transforming mesoscopic objects. Through a combination of…
We demonstrate that a set of microfabricated electrodes can be coupled to a commercial optical tweezers device, implementing a hybrid electro-optical trap with multiple functionalities to manipulate micro/nanoparticles in suspension. Our…
Standard optical tweezers rely on optical forces that arise when a focused laser beam interacts with a microscopic particle: scattering forces, which push the particle along the beam direction, and gradient forces, which attract it towards…
This paper reports on the excitation of surface plasmons on gold-coated nanofibre tips by side-illumination with a laser beam and the coupling of the surface plasmons to the optical fiber. The measurements show a strong dependence of the…
We demonstrate surface plasmon-induced enhancements in optical imaging and spectroscopy on silver coated silicon nanocones which we call black silver substrate. The black silver substrate with dense and homogeneous nanocone forest structure…
Optical tweezers that utilize a highly focused, linearly polarized laser beam exhibit strong trap stiffness asymmetry, which originates from the anisotropic field distribution in the transverse plane. Based on the previous study of…
Dynamic control of compact chip-scale contactless manipulation of particles for bioscience applications remains a challenging endeavor, which is restrained by the balance between trapping efficiency and scalable apparatus. Metasurfaces…
We report the realization of the first planar optical tweezer trap system by a sheet of light. To visualize the trapping of the target object (dielectric bead or live cell) in a plane, an orthogonal widefield detection is employed. The…
Optical tweezers exploit light--matter interactions to trap particles ranging from single atoms to micrometer-sized eukaryotic cells. For this reason, optical tweezers are a ubiquitous tool in physics, biology, and nanotechnology. Recently,…
Precise control of particle positioning is desirable in many optical propulsion and sorting applications. Here, we develop an integrated platform for particle manipulation consisting of a combined optical nanofibre and optical tweezers…