Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Review
. 1997 May 13;94(10):4853-60.
doi: 10.1073/pnas.94.10.4853.

Optical trapping and manipulation of neutral particles using lasers

A Ashkin  1
Affiliations
Review

Optical trapping and manipulation of neutral particles using lasers

A Ashkin. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. .

Abstract

The techniques of optical trapping and manipulation of neutral particles by lasers provide unique means to control the dynamics of small particles. These new experimental methods have played a revolutionary role in areas of the physical and biological sciences. This paper reviews the early developments in the field leading to the demonstration of cooling and trapping of neutral atoms in atomic physics and to the first use of optical tweezers traps in biology. Some further major achievements of these rapidly developing methods also are considered.

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
(A) Origin of Fscat and Fgrad for high index sphere displaced from TEM00 beam axis. (B) Geometry of 2-beam trap.
Figure 2
Figure 2
(A) Geometry of levitation trap. (B) Origin of backward restoring force F for sphere located below tweezers focus f.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Ashkin A. Phys Rev Lett. 1970;24:156–159.
    1. Ashkin A. Phys Rev Lett. 1970;25:1321–1324.
    1. Askar’yan V S. Zh Eksp Teor Fiz. 1962;42:1567–1569.
    1. Letokhov V S. Zh Eksp Teor Fiz. 1968;7:348–351.
    1. Ashkin A, Dziedzic J M. Appl Phys Lett. 1971;19:283–285.

LinkOut - more resources