Related papers: Generally applicable holographic torque measuremen…
We report on the observation and measurement of the transfer of transverse angular momentum to birefringent particles several wavelengths in size. A trapped birefringent particle is much larger than the nano-particles systems for which…
Achieving quantum-limited motional control of optically trapped particles beyond the sub-micrometer scale is an outstanding problem in levitated optomechanics. A key obstacle is solving the light scattering problem and identifying particle…
When introducing a nanoparticle into an optical trap, its mass and shape are not immediately apparent. We combine a charge-based mass measurement with a shape determination method based on light scattering and an analysis of the damping…
A strongly focused laser beam can be used to trap, manipulate and exert torque on a microparticle. The torque is the result of transfer of angular momentum by scattering of the laser beam. The laser could be used to drive a rotor, impeller,…
We present a theory for the estimation of a scalar or a vector magnetic field by its influence on an ensemble of trapped spin polarized atoms. The atoms interact off-resonantly with a continuous laser field, and the measurement of the…
The development of robust, real-time optical methods for the detection and tracking of particles in complex multiple scattering media is a problem of practical importance in a number of fields, including environmental monitoring, air…
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…
Experimental observations suggest that there are differences between the behavior of particles optically trapped in air and trapped in a liquid phase. We present a modified version of Mie Debye Spherical Aberration theory to numerically…
Many optical measurement techniques, such as light scattering from wavelength-scale particles or detecting motion from a surface with an optical lever, encode information in a complex radiation pattern. Extracting all available information…
A detailed treatment of an electro-optical trap for polar molecules, realized by embedding an optical trap within a uniform electrostatic field, is presented and the trap's properties analyzed and discussed. The electro-optical trap offers…
Optical forces are often calculated by discretizing the trapping light beam into a set of rays and using geometrical optics to compute the exchange of momentum. However, the number of rays sets a trade-off between calculation speed and…
We establish universal relationships between optical force/torque on a general particle and different parts of linear and angular momentum (AM) of generic monochromatic optical field. It is rigorously proved that the optical force comes…
Heavy polar molecules can be used to measure the electric dipole moment of the electron, which is a sensitive probe of physics beyond the Standard Model. The value is determined by measuring the precession of the molecule's spin in a plane…
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 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…
Photophoretic forces, several orders of magnitude stronger than radiation pressure, enable particle trapping at remarkably low optical intensities and have opened pathways to applications in aerosol science, free-space 3D volumetric…
We consider a measurement of the position of a spot painted on the surface of a trapped nano-optomechanical sphere. The measurement extracts information about the position of the spot and in doing so measures a combination of the…
We demonstrate experimentally a simple and easy-to-use technique aimed at measuring the complex orbital angular momentum spectrum of an arbitrary optical field making use of just polarization measurements. The technique can be applied to…
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…
We show that the optical force field in optical tweezers with elliptically polarized beams has the opposite handedness for a wide range of particle sizes and for the most common configurations. Our method is based on the direct observation…