Nanomanipulation with Optical Tweezers : From Single Molecules to Cells

✍ Scribed by Joost van Mameren; Anna Wozniak

• Book ID: 102866647
• Publisher: Wiley (John Wiley & Sons)
• Year: 2009
• Weight: 676 KB
• Volume: 11
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 1439-4243
• DOI: 10.1002/imic.200990012

✦ Synopsis

In recent years, the manipulation of nanostructures using optical tweezers developed from proof-of-principle experiments to an established quantitative technique in fields ranging from (bio)physics to cell biology. With optical tweezers, microscopically small objects can not only be held and manipulated, but also tracked to the nanometer. At the same time, forces exerted on trapped objects can be accurately measured with a resolution well below a picoNewton. used to capture and hold small objects in 3D: an optical trap or 'optical tweezers'.

Optical tweezers have been used extensively not only to manipulate colloids, biomolecules and cells, but also to directly and accurately measure the minute forces involved.

JPK Instruments recently introduced a new platform, the NanoTracker (fig. 1). This first quantitative optical tweezers system available on the market allows the controlled trapping and accurate tracking of particles of sizes from microns down to a few tens of nanometers.