A photograph of a nanoparticle (diameter 103 nm) trapped by an optical tweezer. The nanoparticle can be seen as the tiny bright spot in the middle. For additional control two copper electrodes are placed above and below the particle.
Optical tweezers (originally called single-beam gradient force trap) are scientific instruments that use a highly focused laser beam to hold and move microscopic and sub-microscopic objects like atoms, nanoparticles and droplets, in a manner similar to tweezers. If the object is held in air or vacuum without additional support, it can be called optical levitation.
The laser light provides an attractive or repulsive force (typically on the order of piconewtons), depending on the relative refractive index between particle and surrounding medium. Levitation is possible if the force of the light counters the force of gravity. The trapped particles are usually micron-sized, or even smaller. Dielectric and absorbing particles can be trapped, too.
Optical tweezers are used in biology and medicine (for example to grab and hold a single bacterium, a cell like a sperm cell or a blood cell, or a molecule like DNA), nanoengineering and nanochemistry (to study and build materials from single molecules), quantum optics and quantum optomechanics (to study the interaction of single particles with light). The development of optical tweezing by Arthur Ashkin was lauded with the 2018 Nobel Prize in Physics.
Opticaltweezers (originally called single-beam gradient force trap) are scientific instruments that use a highly focused laser beam to hold and move microscopic...
Tweezers are small hand tools used for grasping objects too small to be easily handled with the human fingers. Tweezers are thumb-driven forceps most...
Technologies. Ashkin has been considered by many as the father of opticaltweezers, for which he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics 2018 at age 96...
Prize in Physics), interferometry (2017 Nobel Prize in Physics) and opticaltweezers (2018 Nobel Prize in Physics). Radiation pressure can equally well...
Light can be used to position matter using various phenomena (see opticaltweezers). Optics is part of everyday life. The ubiquity of visual systems in...
simulation of Vortex Diffractive Optical Element from near field to far field by Holo/Or Optical vortices and opticaltweezers at the University of Glasgow...
positioning clouds of atoms or even small biological samples in an optical trap or opticaltweezers by laser beam. This, along with Doppler cooling and Sisyphus...
perform force spectroscopy include atomic force microscopy, opticaltweezers, magnetic tweezers, acoustic force spectroscopy, microneedles, and biomembranes...
using a variety of instrumentation including atomic force microscopy, opticaltweezers, and hydrodynamic force balance machines. Atomic force microscopy (AFM)...
methods include the use of magnetic particles, liquid-liquid extraction, opticaltweezers, and hydrodynamic effects. For magnetic particle separations a droplet...
used the tweezers to capture living bacteria without harming them. He immediately began studying biological systems using the opticaltweezers, which are...
frequency of the optical supply. a dual-mirror optical cavity that holds around 20,000 cesium atoms trapped by means of opticaltweezers and laser-cooled...
Magnetic tweezers (MT) are scientific instruments for the manipulation and characterization of biomolecules or polymers. These apparatus exert forces and...
trapping of single atoms in opticaltweezers. Experimental platforms leveraging ultracold neutral atoms in opticaltweezers and optical lattices have become...
as opticaltweezers and AFM have been used to understand protein folding mechanisms of isolated proteins as well as proteins with chaperones. Optical tweezers...
Circularly-polarized Airy light-sheet spinner tweezers and particle transport (see also: Opticaltweezers) Researchers at the University of St. Andrews...
decoherence during quantum gates between ions. List of laser articles Opticaltweezers – Scientific instruments Zeeman Slower – Instrument for slowing and...
lithography.[citation needed] SLMs are also used in optical computing and holographic opticaltweezers. Usually, an SLM modulates the intensity of the light...
and simpler method for preparing cultures from a single cell than opticaltweezers and micromanipulators. Serial dilution is one of the core foundational...
known as opticaltweezers. An advantage of the single-beam design is that no two laser beams need to be exactly adjusted to make their optical axes match...
frequencies and materials) Active microrheology may use a magnetic field , opticaltweezers or an atomic force microscope to apply a force on the tracer and then...
Opticaltweezers Raman spectroscopy (OTRS) – Used to study individual particles, and even biochemical processes in single cells trapped by optical tweezers...
them consistently as tractor beams. Force field (physics) Optical lift OpticaltweezersOptical levitation Psychokinesis Stasis field "Nasa examines 'tractor...
Chapel Hill, running a lab that conducted nanoparticle research with opticaltweezers (lasers). He lived in Apex, North Carolina, and had two young daughters...
positioning clouds of atoms or even small biological samples in an optical trap or opticaltweezers by laser beam. This, along with Doppler cooling and Sisyphus...
Global Information