Related papers: Optical trapping and critical Casimir forces
An original optical tweezers using one or two chemically etched fiber nano-tips is developed. We demonstrate optical trapping of 1 micrometer polystyrene spheres at optical powers down to 2 mW. Harmonic trap potentials were found in the…
The possibility to modify the strength of the Casimir effect by tailoring the dielectric functions of the interacting surfaces is regarded as a unique opportunity in the development of Micro- and NanoElectroMechanical Systems. In air,…
Optical tweezers allow the measurement of fluctuations at the nano-scale, in particular fluctuations in the end-to-end distance in single molecules. Fluctuation spectra can yield valuable information, but they can easily be contaminated by…
Lateral Casimir force near a laterally-inhomogeneous plate is first revealed by both rigorous simulations and proximity approximations. The inhomogeneity-induced lateral Casimir force provides a novel method to control the lateral motion of…
In confined systems near a continuous phase transition the long-ranged fluctuations of the corresponding order parameter are subject to boundary conditions. These constraints result in so-called critical Casimir forces acting as effective…
We demonstrate the realization of (laterally) optically bounded colloidal structures on a liquid-liquid interface of an emulsion droplet. We use DNA tethers to graft the particles to the droplet surface, effectively confining them to a…
Confining in space the equilibrium fluctuations of statistical systems with long-range correlations is known to result into effective forces on the boundaries. Here we demonstrate the occurrence of Casimir-like forces in the non-equilibrium…
Optical centrifuge has emerged as a promising tool for achieving centrifuge motion of particles in many fields. Herein, we report a novel optical centrifuge, as driven by optical lateral force arising from transverse phase gradient of light…
Within mean field theory, we investigate the bridging transition between a pair of parallel cylindrical colloids immersed in a binary liquid mixture as a solvent which is close to its critical consolute point $T_c$. We determine the…
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…
We study the Casimir force between a nanoparticle and a substrate. We consider the interaction of metal nanoparticles with different substrates within the dipolar approximation. We study the force as a function of the distance for gold and…
We show how to entangle the motion of optically levitated nanoparticles in distant optical tweezers. The scheme consists in coupling the inelastically scattered light of each particle into transmission lines and directing it towards the…
The confinement of long-ranged critical fluctuations in the vicinity of second-order phase transitions in fluids generates critical Casimir forces acting on confining surfaces or among particles immersed in a critical solvent. This is…
We present a dual-trap optical tweezers setup which directly measures forces using linear momentum conservation. The setup uses a counter-propagating geometry, which allows momentum measurement on each beam separately. The experimental…
Optical tweezers are tools made of light that enable contactless pushing, trapping, and manipulation of objects ranging from atoms to space light sails. Since the pioneering work by Arthur Ashkin in the 1970s, optical tweezers have evolved…
Recently there is strong experimental and theoretical interest in studying the self-assembly and the phase behavior of patchy and of Janus particles, which form colloidal suspensions. Although in this quest a variety of effective…
Up to now, in the literature of optical manipulation, optical force due to chirality usually coexists with the non-chiral force and the chiral force usually takes a very small portion of the total force. In this work, we investigate a case…
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…
We demonstrate quantum levitation controlled by Casimir forces acting between a polystyrene surface and a Teflon-coated metallic substrate immersed in a mixture of Toluene and magnetite particles. This system experiences…
We demonstrate optical trapping and manipulation of defects and transparent microspheres in nematic liquid crystals (LCs). The three-dimensional director fields and positions of the particles are visualized using the Fluorescence Confocal…