Figure 2.

Examples applications of Optical Tweezers. (a–c) Different optical trapping experiments for trapping sub-wavelength to super-wavelength sized objects: (a) plasmonic bow-tie antenna (gold) illuminated by a weakly focused beam holding a sub-wavelength sized particle, (b) inverted microscope and microfluidic chamber used for holographic (multi-beam) optical tweezers with a high numerical aperture condenser to collect the scattered light for direct optical force measurement, (c) optical trapping an otolith (ear stone) inside a zebrafish. (d–f) Examples of molecular, cellular and large scale trapped objects and applications: (d) molecular sized particles can be manipulated with auxiliary particles or specially designed plasmonic structures; (e) on a cellular scale, OT can be used to place cells inside structures, manipulate parts of cells, or for indirect manipulation with probe particles; (f) at larger scales, OT can be used for manipulating structures inside living organisms, such as an otolith inside a zebrafish (d–f) adapted/reproduced from: Favre-Bulle et al. (2019) (CC BY 4.0); Rodríguez (2019) (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 CL); Ehrlicher et al. (2002) Copyright 2002 National Academy of Sciences; Heidarsson et al. (2014) Copyright 2014 the authors; Pine and Chow (2009) Copyright 2008 IEEE, reprinted with permission; Pang and Gordon (2012) and Shoji et al. (2013) Copyright 2012, 2013 American Chemical Society; scale bars have been added to show approximate scale).