Related papers: Controllable Lateral Optical Forces on Janus Parti…
Recent experimental developments showed that the use of the radiation pressure, induced by a continuous laser wave, to control fluid-fluid interface deformations at the microscale, represents a very promising alternative to electric or…
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…
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…
As we read this text, our eyes dynamically adjust the focal length to keep the line image in focus on the retina. Similarly, in many optics applications the focal length must be dynamically tunable. In the quest for compactness and…
In optomechanical systems, the libration and rotation of nanoparticles offer profound insights for ultrasensitive torque measurement and macroscopic quantum superpositions. Achievements include transitioning libration to rotation up to 6…
We demonstrate a new type of optomechanical system employing a movable, micron-scale waveguide evanescently-coupled to a high-Q optical microresonator. Micron-scale displacements of the waveguide are observed for milliwatt(mW)-level optical…
Active media, whose constituents are able to move autonomously, display novel features that differ from those of equilibrium systems. In addition to naturally-occurring active systems such as populations of swimming bacteria, active systems…
Optical nonlinearities - how light-matter interactions are influenced by previous interactions with photons, are key resources in the contemporary photonics toolbox, relevant to quantum gate operations and all-optical switches. Optical…
Janus --or two-sided, charged membranes offer promise as ionic current rectifiers. In such systems, pores consisting of two regions of opposite charge can be used to generate a current from a gradient in salinity. The efficiency of…
It is shown that a circular dipole can deflect the focused laser beam that induces it, and will experience a corresponding transverse force. Quantitative expressions are derived for Gaussian and angular tophat beams, while the effects…
A single light-driven Janus particle confined in a very thin oil droplet at an air--water interface displays intriguing dynamics. While laser activation induces rapid horizontal motion (1mm/s--1cm/s) by thermal Marangoni flow, the particle…
Optomechanics is concerned with the use of light to control mechanical objects. As a field, it has been hugely successful in the production of precise and novel sensors, the development of low-dissipation nanomechanical devices, and the…
While tunable filters are a recent development in night time astronomy, they have long been used in other physical sciences, e.g. solar physics, remote sensing and underwater communications. With their ability to tune precisely to a given…
Evanescent electromagnetic waves possess spin-momentum locking, where the direction of propagation (momentum) is locked to the inherent polarization of the wave (transverse spin). We study the optical forces arising from this universal…
A novel scheme for tunable optofluidic optical coupler is proposed, by using directional coupling waveguide structure and microfluidic channel with two tapers at end points. The normalized optical power at two output ports can be…
In recent times, we experimentally realized a quite efficient modeling of the shape of diffraction-resistant optical beams; thus generating for the first time the so-called Frozen Waves (FW), whose longitudinal intensity pattern can be…
The spin angular momentum in an elliptically polarized beam of light plays several noteworthy roles in optical traps. It contributes to the linear momentum density in a non-uniform beam, and thus to the radiation pressure exerted on…
We consider optical properties of a gas of molecules that are brought to fast unidirectional spinning by a pulsed laser field. It is shown that a circularly polarized probe light passing through the medium inverts its polarization…
A new mechanism for micro-swimmer motion in an aquatic environment, which implies light-induced polarization perturbations as a motivation for its motion, is proposed. The mechanism assumes that natural light leads to an enhancement of the…
Auxiliary nanostructures introduce additional flexibility into optomechanical manipulation schemes. Metamaterials and metasurfaces capable to control electromagnetic interactions at the near-field regions are especially beneficial for…