Optical Tweezers (OT) Technology

Optical tweezers is a Nobel-prize winning technology and enables the quantification of molecular, cellular and micro-rheological processes. Applications include molecular motor mechanics, binding/elasticity of DNA and proteins, cell membrane dynamics and particle uptake into cells. Optical tweezers are used in biology and medicine (for example to grab and hold a single bacterium, a cell like a sperm cell or a blood cell, or a molecule like DNA), nanoengineering and nanochemistry (to study and build materials from single molecules), quantum optics and quantum optomechanics (to study the interaction of single particles with light).