Abstract
Optical tweezers are exquisite position and force transducers and are widely used for high-resolution measurements in fields as varied as physics, biology and materials science1,2,3. Typically, small dielectric particles are trapped in a tightly focused laser and are often used as handles for sensitive force measurements. Improvement to the technique has largely focused on improving the instrument and shaping the light beam1,4, and there has been little work exploring the benefit of customizing the trapped object5. Here, we describe how anti-reflection coated, high-refractive-index core–shell particles composed of titania enable single-beam optical trapping with an optical force greater than a nanonewton. The increased force range broadens the scope of feasible optical trapping experiments and will pave the way towards more efficient light-powered miniature machines, tools and applications.
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Acknowledgements
The authors thank V. Bormuth for comments on the manuscript. This work was supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (Emmy Noether Program), the European Research Council (ERC starting grant 2010), EU project Nanodirect (CP-FP-213948-2) and Technische Universität Dresden.
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E.S. designed research. A.J. performed measurements. A.J. and A.F.D. synthesized the particles. A.v.B. advised on the synthesis. A.J. and P.D.J.v.O. performed theoretical calculations. A.J. and E.S. analysed the data and wrote the manuscript.
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Jannasch, A., Demirörs, A., van Oostrum, P. et al. Nanonewton optical force trap employing anti-reflection coated, high-refractive-index titania microspheres. Nature Photon 6, 469–473 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1038/nphoton.2012.140
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nphoton.2012.140
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