Monday 9 September 2013

Entry in Encyclopedia of Optical Engineering

The article on Optical Tweezers has now been published in the Taylor & Francis Encyclopedia of Optical Engineering.

From the abstract: Optical tweezers are devices that use a single, strongly focused laser beam for the remote, non-contact trapping and manipulation of microscopic objects. Since the first demonstration of optical tweezers in 1986, they have become commonly used across physics, chemistry, and biology for experiments as diverse as measuring the step size of motor proteins to a demonstration of fluctuations in entropy production in microscopic systems. In this entry, the mechanism behind optical tweezers is introduced, followed by a discussion of practical aspects in the use of optical tweezers, such as data collection and analysis for quantitative measurements, and the use of holographic optical traps. Also, a review of one of the many applications of optical tweezers is presented, namely, the optical trapping of nanoparticles and nanostructures and their use for imaging and force sensing.

Friday 6 September 2013

Susan Skelton wins Carey Foster Prize

Congratulations to former Optical Tweezers PhD student Dr Susan Skelton who has won the Carey Foster Prize for 2013 for her thesis Applications of cylindrical vector beams to optical micromanipulation  The Carey Foster Prize is awarded annually for outstanding postgraduate research in Atomic, Molecular, Optical and Positron Physics to a PhD student who has submitted their thesis in the past year.

Susan gained her PhD in February 2013, and is presently a postdoctoral research associate at the Laboratory for Scientific Instrumentation and Engineering (LaSIE) at the University of Osaka, Japan.