Related papers: Microscopic Geared Mechanisms
Subwavelength dielectric resonators assembled into metasurfaces have become a versatile tool for miniaturising optical components approaching the nanoscale. An important class of metasurface functionalities is associated with asymmetry in…
The ability to change a surface's profile allows biological systems to effectively manipulate and blend into their surroundings. Current surface morphing techniques rely either on having a small number of fixed states or on directly driving…
Metasurfaces -- ultrathin structures composed of subwavelength optical elements -- have revolutionized light manipulation by enabling precise control over electromagnetic waves' amplitude, phase, polarization, and spectral properties.…
In the last decades unprecedented progress in the manipulation of spin angular momentum (SAM) and orbital angular momentum (OAM) of light has been achieved, enabling a number of applications ranging from classical and quantum communication,…
Manipulating the polarization of light is highly desired for versatile applications ranging from super resolution, optical trapping, to particle acceleration. The enormous freedom in metasurface design motivates the implementation of…
Many emerging applications in microscale engineering rely on the fabrication of three-dimensional architectures in inorganic materials. Small-scale additive manufacturing (AM) aspires to provide flexible and facile access to these…
Microscopic robots could perform tasks with high spatial precision, such as acting in biological tissues on the scale of individual cells, provided they can reach precise locations. This paper evaluates the feasibility of in vivo locomotion…
Optical spectroscopy plays an essential role across scientific research and industry for non-contact materials analysis1-3, increasingly through in-situ or portable platforms4-6. However, when considering low-light-level applications,…
Microstructures, characterized by intricate structures at the microscopic scale, hold the promise of important disruptions in the field of mechanical engineering due to the superior mechanical properties they offer. One fundamental…
The successful development and optimisation of optically-driven micromachines will be greatly enhanced by the ability to computationally model the optical forces and torques applied to such devices. In principle, this can be done by…
Miniature varifocal lenses are crucial for many applications requiring compact optical systems. Here, utilizing electro-mechanically actuated 0.5-mm aperture infrared Alvarez meta-optics, we demonstrate 3.1 mm (200 diopters) focal length…
Microsurgery is a particularly impactful yet challenging form of surgery. Robot assisted microsurgery has the potential to improve surgical dexterity and enable precise operation on such small scales in ways not previously possible.…
Optical tweezers employing forces produced by light underpin important manipulation tools in many areas of applied and biological physics. Conventional optical tweezers are based on refractive optics, and they require excessive auxiliary…
The miniaturization of current image sensors is largely limited by the volume of the optical elements. Using a sub-wavelength patterned quasi-periodic structure, also known as a metasurface, one can build planar optical elements based on…
In the latest years the optical engineer's toolbox has welcomed a new concept, the metasurface. In a metasurface, properly tailored material inclusions are able to reshape the electromagnetic field of an incident beam. Change of amplitude,…
On-chip optical trapping systems allow for high scalability and lower the barrier to access. Systems capable of trapping multiple particles typically come with high cost and complexity. Here we present a technique for making parabolic…
A conventional refractive lens surface can act as a positive (converging) or negative (diverging) lens, but the same surface cannot act as both. We show that a geometric phase metasurface lens can have the unique property of acting both as…
Achieving spatiotemporal control of light at high-speeds presents immense possibilities for various applications in communication, computation, metrology, and sensing. The integration of subwavelength metasurfaces and optical waveguides…
Multi-plane light converters (MPLCs) are an emerging 3D beam shaping technology capable of deterministically mapping a basis of input spatial light modes to a new basis of output modes. The ability to perform such spatial reformatting…
We introduce a new approach to build microscopic engines on the atomic scale that move translationally or rotationally and can perform useful functions such as pulling of a cargo. Characteristic of these engines is the possibility to…