Related papers: Plasmonic tweezers based on connected nanoring ape…
A double nanohole in a metal film was used to trap nanoparticles (20 nm diameter) and simultaneously record their Raman spectrum using the trapping laser as the excitation source. This allowed for the identification of characteristic Stokes…
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…
We present an optical nanotrapping setup that exhibits enhanced efficiency, based on localized plasmonic fields around sharp metallic features. The substrates consist of laser-structured silicon wafers with quasi-ordered microspikes on the…
Surface plasmons (SP) and their mediated effects have been widely used to manipulate micro- and nanoscale objects of dielectric and metallic nature. In this work, we show how SP excitation can be used to induce thermofluidic and…
Optical trapping, where microscopic particles are trapped and manipulated by light is a powerful and widespread technique, with the single-beam gradient trap (also known as optical tweezers) in use for a large number of biological and other…
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…
Suspensions of micro and nano particles made of Polystyrene, Poly(methyl methacrylate), Silicon dioxide etc. have been a standard model system to understand colloidal physics. . These systems have proved useful insights into phenomena such…
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…
Advances in optical trapping design principles have led to tremendous progress in manipulating nanoparticles (NPs) with diverse functionalities in different environments using bulky systems. However, efficient control and manipulation of…
We present a simple and effective method of loading particles into an optical trap in air at atmospheric pressure. Material which is highly absorptive at the trapping laser wavelength, such as tartrazine dye, is used as media to attach…
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…
Optically trapped nanospheres in high-vaccum experience little friction and hence are promising for ultra-sensitive force detection. Here we demonstrate measurement times exceeding $10^5$ seconds and zeptonewton force sensitivity with…
Optical dipole-traps are used in various scientific fields, including classical optics, quantum optics and biophysics. Here, we propose and implement a dipole-trap for nanoparticles that is based on focusing from the full solid angle with a…
We experimentally demonstrate efficient interfacing of a large number of atoms to an optical nanofiber using an optical lattice with tunable spacing ($0.88-1.5~\mu$m) projected onto the nanofiber. The lattice beam and reflections from the…
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…
Near-fields around nanophotonic structures and waveguides can be used to optically interface particles ranging from atoms and molecules to microscopic biological and synthetic particles. Due to the strong, non-linear dependence of the…
We describe the design, construction, and operation of an apparatus utilizing a piezoelectric transducer for in-vacuum loading of nanoparticles into an optical trap for use in levitated optomechanics experiments. In contrast to commonly…
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…
The pursuit for efficient nanoparticle trapping with low powers has led to optical tweezers technology moving from the conventional free-space configuration to advanced plasmonic tweezers systems. However, trapping nanoparticles smaller…
We propose and experimentally demonstrate a novel optical method for trapping and cooling dielectric nanospheres at (sub)-micron distances from a reflective metallic surface. By translating a tilted mirror towards the focus of a single-beam…