Optical trapping and manipulation of bacteria with photonic crystal devices

In monitoring the quality of drinking water with respect to the presence of hazardous bacteria, there is a strong need for in-line sensors that allow quick identification of bacterium species at low cost. Raman spectroscopy is a very promising label-free optical technique capable of discriminating bacteria species based on their molecular...

Optical trapping at low numerical aperture

A theory of optical trapping at low Numerical Aperture (NA) is presented. The theory offers an analytical description of the competition between the stabilizing gradient and destabilizing scattering force. The trade-off can be characterized by a single dimensionless trapping parameter, which increases with bead size to wavelength ratio ?/?, m,...