Related papers: Controlling dispersion forces between small partic…
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…
Neutral atoms trapped by laser light are amongst the most promising candidates for storing and processing information in a quantum computer or simulator. The application certainly calls for a scalable and flexible scheme for addressing and…
In vectorial diffraction theory, tight focusing of a linearly polarized laser beam produces an anisotropic field distribution around the focal plane. We present a numerical investigation of the electromagnetic field distribution of a…
Van der Waals forces between atoms and molecules are universally assumed to act along the line separating them. Inspired by recent works on effects which can propel atoms parallel to a macroscopic surface via the Casimir--Polder force, we…
In spite of the widespread use of optical tweezers as a quantitative tool to measure small forces, there exists no unambiguous and simple experimental method for either validating its theoretically predicted form or empirically…
Inelastic interaction of free-electrons with optical near fields has recently attracted attention for manipulating and shaping free-electron wavepackets. Understanding the nature and the dependence of the inelastic cross section on the…
Optical trapping describes the interaction between light and matter to manipulate micro-objects through momentum transfer. In the case of 3D trapping with a single beam, this is termed optical tweezers. Optical tweezers are a powerful and…
Fully internal and motional state controlled and individually manipulable polar molecules are desirable for many quantum science applications leveraging the rich state space and intrinsic interactions of molecules. While prior efforts at…
Optical manipulation of micro- and nanoparticles near surfaces is fundamental for applications in sensing and microfluidics, yet controlling particle-surface interactions remains challenging. Here we experimentally investigate light-induced…
Light is extensively used to steer the motion of atoms in free space, enabling cooling and trapping of matter waves through ponderomotive forces and Doppler-mediated photon scattering. Likewise, light interaction with free electrons has…
We simulate the transport of colloidal particles driven by a static and homogeneous drift force, and subject to the optical potential created by two lattices of optical tweezers. The lattices of optical tweezers are parallel to each other,…
Arrays of optically trapped nanoparticles have emerged as a promising platform for the study of complex non-equilibrium phenomena. Analogous to atomic many-body systems, one of the crucial ingredients is the ability to precisely control the…
The capability to tailor mutual interactions between colloidal nanoparticles strongly depends on the length scales involved. While electrostatic and optomechanically driven interactions can cover nano and micron-scale landscapes,…
The nature of light-matter interaction is governed by the spatial-temporal structures of a light field and material wavefunctions. The emergence of the light beam with transverse phase vortex, or equivalently orbital angular momentum (OAM)…
State-dependent optical tweezers can be used to trap a pair of molecules with a separation much smaller than the wavelength of the trapping light, greatly enhancing the dipole-dipole interaction between them. Here we describe a general…
Micron-sized objects confined in thin liquid films interact through forces mediated by the deformed liquid-air interface. This capillary interactions provide a powerful driving mechanism for the self-assembly of ordered structures such as…
Ultra-intense lasers produce and manipulate plasmas, allowing to locally generate extremely high static and electromagnetic fields. This Letter presents a concept of an ultra-intense optical tweezer, where two counter-propagating circularly…
We report the first experimental study upon the optical trapping and manipulation of topological insulator (TI) particles. By virtue of the unique TI properties, which have a conducting surface and an insulating bulk, the particles present…
A novel method of macroscopically entangled light-pair generation is presented for a quantum laser using randomness-based deterministic phase control of coherent light in a Mach-Zehnder interferometer (MZI). Unlike the particle nature-based…
Optical pulling forces or tractor beams can pull particles against light propagation by redirecting the incident photons forward. This is typically achieved using Bessel beams with very small half-cone angles, which considerably limits its…