Characterization of microparticles with driven optical tweezers.
Faraday Discuss
; 137: 319-33; discussion 403-24, 2008.
Article
in En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-18214111
ABSTRACT
We discuss how actively-driven optical tweezers may be used to characterize Brownian microparticles. Two experiments are described in detail. We follow the thermal fluctuations of a charged particle in an oscillatory electric field and demonstrate that charges as low as a few elementary charges can be measured accurately and reproducibly. Secondly, we measure the orientational dynamics of a trapped rotating droplet and use circular polarimetry within optical tweezers to determine in situ birefringence.