Related papers: Capped colloids as light-mills in optical traps
Laser trapping near the surface of a nanostructured substrate is demonstrated. Stable microbubbles with radii of 1-20micrometers have been created and manipulated with sub-micron precision by a focused laser beam in an immersion oil…
An extended interference pattern close to surface may result in both a transmissive or evanescent surface fields for large area manipulation of trapped particles. The affinity of differing particle sizes to a moving standing wave light…
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 investigate, experimentally and theoretically, polarization rotation effects in dilute photonic crystals with transverse permittivity inhomogeneity perpendicular to the traveling direction of waves. A capsize, namely a drastic change of…
Light-activated self-propelled colloids are synthesized and their active motion is studied using optical microscopy. We propose a versatile route using different photoactive materials, and demonstrate a multiwavelength activation and…
Optical tweezers, the three-dimensional confinement of a nanoparticle by a strongly focused beam of light, have been widely employed in investigating biomaterial nanomechanics, nanoscopic fluid properties, and ultrasensitive detections in…
Optical trapping describes the interaction between light and matter to manipulate micro-objects through momentum transfer. In the case of 3D trapping with a single beam, this is termed optical tweezers. Optical tweezers are a powerful and…
The optical binding of many particles has great potential to achieve the wide-area formation of a "crystal" of small materials. Unlike conventional optical binding, where the whole assembly of targeted particles is irradiated with light, if…
In this Letter we show how a single beam optical trap offers the means for three-dimensional manipulation of semiconductor nanorods in solution. Furthermore rotation of the direction of the electric field provides control over the…
We show theoretically and demonstrate experimentally that highly absorbing particles can be trapped and manipulated in a single highly focused Gaussian beam. Our studies of the effects of polarized light on such particles show that they can…
We introduce a new class of optical micromotors driven by the spin-orbit interaction of light and spin-driven fluid flows leading to simultaneous rotation and revolution of the micromotors. The micromotors are essentially birefringent…
The optical properties of a concentric nanometer-sized spherical shell comprised of an (active) 3-level gain medium core and a surrounding plasmonic metal shell are investigated. Current research in optical metamaterials has demonstrated…
We show using numerical simulations that a rich variety of novel colloidal crystalline states are realized on square and triangular two dimensional periodic substrates which can be experimentally created using crossed laser arrays. When…
Optical tweezers enable non-contact trapping of micro-scale objects using light. Despite their widespread use, it is currently not known how tightly it is possible to three-dimensionally trap micro-particles with a given photon budget.…
Orbital optical trapping of a dielectric micro-particle in air was studied experimentally using a lensed, counter-propagating dual-beam trap, and by numerical simulations employing ray optics. The essential attributes of particle dynamics…
We demonstrate significantly improved magneto-optical trapping of molecules using a very slow cryogenic beam source and RF modulated and DC magnetic fields. The RF MOT confines $1.1(3) \times 10^5$ CaF molecules at a density of $4(1) \times…
We report for the first time the theory of optical tweezers of spherical dielectric particles embedded in a chiral medium. We develop a partial-wave (Mie) expansion to calculate the optical force acting on a dielectric microsphere…
We investigate theoretically the ability of an optical centrifuge - a laser pulse whose linear polarization is rotating at an accelerated rate, to control molecular rotation in the regime when the rigid-rotor approximation breaks down due…
Optical forces allow manipulation of small particles and control of nanophotonic structures with light beams. Here, we describe a counter-intuitive lateral optical force acting on particles placed above a substrate, under uniform plane wave…
We study the motion of active patchy colloids in an optical trap using experiments, theory and numerical simulations. To achieve isotropic and harmonic confinement, we prototype microparticles with a nearly uniform refractive index and…