Optical trapping using focused laser beams (laser tweezers) has been proven to be
extremely useful for contactless manipulation of a variety of small objects, including …

Propulsive effects of light, which often remain unnoticed in our daily-life experience, manifest
themselves on spatial scales ranging from subatomic to astronomical. Light-mediated forces …

Levitated optomechanics has great potential in precision measurements, thermodynamics,
macroscopic quantum mechanics, and quantum sensing. Here we synthesize and optically …

An optically levitated nanoparticle in vacuum is a paradigm optomechanical system for
sensing and studying macroscopic quantum mechanics. While its center-of-mass motion has …

We demonstrate time-of-flight measurements for an ultracold levitated nanoparticle and
reveal its velocity for the translational motion brought to the quantum ground state. We …

Manipulating the rotational as well as the translational degrees of freedom of rigid bodies
has been a crucial ingredient in diverse areas, from optically controlled micro-robots …

Optical manipulation of nanostructures offers new exciting possibilities for building new
nano-architectures and for exploring the fundamental interactions between light and …

Optically induced mechanical torque driving rotation of small objects requires the presence
of absorption or breaking cylindrical symmetry of a scatterer. A spherical nonabsorbing …

It was previously believed that larger metal nanoparticles behave as tiny mirrors that are
pushed by the light beam radiative force along the direction of beam propagation, without a …

Directed high-speed motion of nanoscale objects in fluids can have a wide range of
applications like molecular machinery, nano robotics, and material assembly. Here, we …