Related papers: Optical trapping with structured light
Since their invention in the 1980s [1], optical tweezers have found a wide range of applications, from biophotonics and mechanobiology to microscopy and optomechanics [2, 3, 4, 5]. Simulations of the motion of microscopic particles held by…
Radiation pressure forces in a focussed laser beam can be used to trap microscopic absorbing particles against a substrate. Calculations based on momentum transfer considerations show that stable trapping occurs before the beam waist, and…
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…
Optical trapping is a widely used technique, with many important applications in biology and metrology. Complete modelling of trapping requires calculation of optical forces, primarily a scattering problem, and non-optical forces. The…
Interferometry can completely redirect light, providing the potential for strong and controllable optical forces. However, small particles do not naturally act like interferometric beamsplitters, and the optical scattering from them is not…
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…
Optical trapping of metallic microparticles remains a big challenge because of the strong scattering and absorption of light by the particles. In the paper, we report a new mechanism for stable trapping of metallic microparticles by using a…
Optically levitated dielectric nanoparticles have become valuable tools for precision sensing and quantum optomechanical experiments. To predict the dynamic properties of a particle trapped in an optical tweezer with high fidelity, a tool…
Light is the fundamental medium through which we perceive the world around us. In the modern era, light can not only be used in its raw form but can also be used as a versatile tool. Generally, light fields carry energy and momentum (both…
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…
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…
Critical Casimir forces emerge between objects, such as colloidal particles, whenever their surfaces spatially confine the fluctuations of the order parameter of a critical liquid used as a solvent. These forces act at short but…
We develop an optical tweezers system using a single dual-mode optical fiber where mesoscopic absorbing particles can be trapped in three dimensions and manipulated employing photophoretic forces. We generate a superposition of fundamental…
Particles that can be trapped in optical tweezers range from tens of microns down to tens of nanometres in size. Interestingly, this size range includes large macromolecules. We show experimentally, in agreement with theoretical…
Optical tweezers are powerful tools for high resolution study of surface properties. Such experiments are traditionally performed by studying the active or the brownian fluctuation of trapped particles in the X, Y, Z direction. Here we find…
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…
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…
Optical tweezers have found widespread application in many fields, from physics to biology. Here, we explain in detail how optical forces and torques can be described within the geometrical optics approximation and we show that this…
Optically levitated and cooled nanoparticles are a new quantum system whose application to the creation of non-classical states of motion and quantum limited sensing is fundamentally limited by recoil and bulk heating. We study the creation…
Optical transport networks for active absorbing microparticles are made with holographic optical tweezers. The particles are powered by the optical potentials that make the network and transport themselves via random vapor propelled hops to…