Related papers: Ballistic Supercavitating Nano Swimmer Driven by S…

Since the historical experiments of Crookes, the direct manipulation of matter by light has been both a challenge and a source of scientific debate. Here we show that laser illumination allows to displace a vial of nanoparticle solution…

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…

A vesicle is a spherical structure composed of a phospholipid bilayer that is used as a container for chemicals, both it in vivo and it in vitro systems. In both cases, the vesicles can be passively moved using external molecular motors or…

The center-of-mass motion of optically trapped dielectric nanoparticles in vacuum is extremely well-decoupled from its environment, making a powerful tool for measurements of feeble sub-attonewton forces. We demonstrate a method to trap and…

The optical response of metallic nanoparticle arrays is dominated by localized surface plasmon excitations and is the sum of individual particle contributions modified by inter-particle coupling depending on specific array geometry. Here we…

Manipulating fluids by light at the nanoscale has been a long-sought-after goal for lab-on-a-chip applications. Plasmonic heating has been demonstrated to control microfluidic dynamics due to the enhanced and confined light absorption from…

Swimming micro-organisms such as flagellated bacteria and sperm cells have fascinating locomotion capabilities. Inspired by their natural motion, there is an ongoing effort to develop artificial robotic nano-swimmers for potential in-body…

Recent advances in nanotechnologies have prompted the need for tools to accurately and non invasively manipulate individual nanoobjects. Among the possible strategies, optical forces have been widely used to enable nano optical tweezers…

An unprecedented double-threshold lasing behavior has been observed in a plasmonic random laser composed of Au nanoislands decorated on vertically standing ZnO nanorods, infiltrated with dye-doped polymer matrix. The strong coupling of…

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…

In the present paper we introduce a new accelerator concept for ions. The accelerator is nano-structured and can consist of a range of materials. It is capable of generating large ionic currents at moderate ion energies. The nano-structures…

Nanopores are both a tool to study single-molecule biophysics and nanoscale ion transport, but also a promising material for desalination or osmotic power generation. Understanding the physics underlying ion transport through nano-sized…

Laser-driven ion accelerators have the advantages of compact size, high density, and short bunch duration over conventional accelerators. Nevertheless, it is still challenging to generate ion beams with quasi-monoenergetic peak and low…

We measured the overall motion of Brownian particles suspended in water by a self-mixing thin-slice solid-state laser with extreme optical sensitivity. From the demodulated signal of laser intensity fluctuations through self-mixing…

We demonstrate that ultrafast carrier excitation can drastically affect electronic structures and induce brief surface plasmonic response in non-plasmonic metals, potentially creating a plasmonic switch. Using first-principles molecular…

Optical tweezers have become a powerful tool for measuring parameters of microscale and nanoscale local environments. Motion of particles within optical tweezer traps established itself as a probe for local viscosity, temperature as well as…

The spatial confinement and temporal control of an optical excitation on nanometer length scales and femtosecond time scales has been a long-standing challenge in optics. It would provide spectroscopic access to the elementary optical…

Incorporation of catalytically active materials into plasmonic metal nanostructures can efficiently merge the reactivity and energy harvesting abilities of both types of materials for visible light photocatalysis. Here we explore the…

Self-propelled nanoparticles moving through liquids offer the possibility of creating advanced applications where such nanoswimmers can operate as artificial molecular-sized motors. Achieving control over the motion of nanoswimmers is a…

We report the development of magnetic nanocomposite sheets with superhydrophobic and superoleophilic surfaces generated by laser ablation. Polydimethylsiloxane elastomer freestanding films, loaded homogeneously with 2% wt. carbon coated…