Related papers: Optical trapping below the diffraction limit with …

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…

Random surface texturing of an optically-thick film to increase the path length of scattered light rays, first proposed nearly thirty years ago, has thus far remained the most effective approach for photon absorption over the widest set of…

Ultralong trapping of light has been observed in an optically dense three-level solid medium interacting with a pair of counterpropagating coupling fields. Unlike the light trapping based on standing-wave gratings excited by the same…

When subjected to monochromatic incident light a nanoparticle will emit light which then interferes with the incident beam. With sufficient contrast and sufficiently close to the particle this interference pattern may be recorded with a…

Refractive optical trapping forces can be nonconservative in the vicinity of a stable equilibrium point even in the absence of radiation pressure. We discuss how nonconservative 3D force fields, in the vicinity of an equilibrium point,…

We demonstrate photophoretic force-based optical trapping of multiple absorbing particles in air by loosely focusing a Gaussian beam with a series of convex lenses of different focal lengths, and investigate the dependence of the number of…

We investigate numerically and experimentally the properties of a two color optical fiber taper trap, for which the evanescent field of the modes in the fiber taper give rise to a three-dimensional trapping potential. Experimentally, we use…

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 dynamics of electrons in counter-propagating, circularly polarized laser beams are shown to exhibit attractors whose ability to trap particles depends on the ratio of the beam intensities and a single parameter describing radiation…

Rapid advances are being made toward optically cooling a single mode of a micro-mechanical system to its quantum ground state and observing quantum behavior at macroscopic scales. Reaching this regime in room-temperature environments…

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…

We report on highly effective trapping of cold atoms by a new method for a stable single optical trap in the near-optical resonant regime. An optical trap with the near-optical resonance condition consists of not only the dipole but also…

We demonstrate size selective optical trapping and transport for nanoparticles near an optical nanofiber taper. Using a two-wavelength, counter-propagating mode configuration, we show that 100 nm diameter and 150 nm diameter gold…

We observe the opto-mechanical multistability of a macroscopic torsion balance oscillator. The torsion oscillator forms the moving mirror of a hemi-spherical laser light cavity. When a laser beam is coupled into this cavity, the radiation…

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…

The average Raman signal power obtained in a modulated optical trap is dependent on the Brownian motion - therefore hydrodynamic properties of the trapped particle. Hence, in addition to the molecular properties obtained from the Raman…

We present a theoretical analysis of a novel scheme for optical cooling of particles that does not in principle require a closed optical transition. A tightly confined laser beam interacting with a trapped particle experiences a phase…

Optical lattices are essential tools in ultra-cold atomic physics. Here we demonstrate theoretically that sub-wavelength confinement can be achieved in these lattices through superoscillations. This generic wave phenomenon occurs when a…

The capacity to confine light into a small region of space is of paramount importance in many areas of modern science. Here, we suggest a mechanism to store a quantized "bit" of light - with a very precise amount of energy - in an open…

We show that customized optical patterns can be generated by employing feedback-based wavefront shaping without prior knowledge of the transmission matrix of optical systems. To control the spatial distribution of intensity within the…