Related papers: Towards efficient modelling of optical micromanipu…
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…
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…
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…
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…
Current optical manipulation techniques rely on carefully engineered setups and samples. Although similar conditions are routinely met in research laboratories, it is still a challenge to manipulate microparticles when the environment is…
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…
Computational modelling has made many useful contributions to the field of optical tweezers. One aspect in which it can be applied is the simulation of the dynamics of particles in optical tweezers. This can be useful for systems with many…
It is common to introduce optical tweezers using either geometric optics for large particles or the Rayleigh approximation for very small particles. These approaches are successful at conveying the key ideas behind optical tweezers in their…
A key element in the generation of optical torque in optical traps, which occurs when electromagnetic angular momentum is transferred from the trapping beam to the trapped particle by scattering, is the symmetries of the scattering particle…
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…
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,…
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…
Optical tweezers are powerful tools based on focused laser beams. They are able to trap, manipulate and investigate a wide range of microscopic and nanoscopic particles in different media, such as liquids, air, and vacuum. Key applications…
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…
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.…
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…
Optical tweezers are highly versatile laser traps for neutral microparticles, with fundamental applications in physics and in single molecule cell biology. Force measurements are performed by converting the stiffness response to…
High-precision micromanipulation techniques, including optical tweezers and hydrodynamic trapping, have garnered wide-spread interest. Recent advances in optofluidic multiplexed assembly and microrobotics demonstrate significant progress,…
Based on the convex hull construction algorithm, a new geometrical model of ice crystals is proposed to investigate the scattering properties of cirrus clouds particles. Light scattering matrices involving complete polarization information…
We employ neural networks to improve and speed up optical force calculations for dielectric particles. The network is first trained on a limited set of data obtained through accurate light scattering calculations, based on the Transition…