. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2019 Apr 17.

Published in final edited form as: Acc Chem Res. 2018 Mar 28;51(4):839–849. doi: 10.1021/acs.accounts.8b00004

Table 1.

Comparison of magnetic nano-tweezers with conventional tweezers^*.

	Nanoscale tweezers		Conventional tweezers
	Magnetic nano-tweezers (MNTs)		Magnetic tweezers	Optical tweezers	AFM
Probe type	Single magnetic nanoparticle	Clusters of magnetic nanoparticles	Magnetic microparticles	Polystyrene or silica microparticles	AFM Cantilever
Primary mode of force stimulation	- Pulling - Dipolar-attraction - Rotation	- Pulling	- Pulling - Rotation	- Pulling	- Pulling - Push
Force range	Weak (~ hundreds of fN)	Strong (~ sub-nN)	Strong (10⁻² – 10² pN)	Strong (10⁻¹ – 10² pN)	Very strong (10¹ – 10⁴ pN)
Target dimension	Single molecule to cell and tissue	Single cell to tissue	Single molecule to cell and tissue	Single molecule to single cell	Single molecule to single cell
Target labeling density (probes/cell)	High (10¹–10⁵ probes/cell^#)		Low (one or a few probes/cell)	Low (one or a few probes/cell)	Low (one probe/cell)

general observation, but can be varied depending on the experimental condition, instrument, and setup

depends on the target receptor density