Theory of holographic optical trapping

Bo Sun, Yohai Roichman and David G. Grier
Department of Physics and Center for Soft Matter Research, New York University, New York, NY 10003

Date: September 21, 2008

Abstract:

Optical traps use the forces exerted by structured beams of light to confine and manipulate microscopic objects in three dimensions. A popular implementation involves structuring the trap-forming beam with computer-generated holograms before focusing it into traps with a high-numerical-aperture optical train. Here, we present a fully vectorial theory for the forces and torques exerted by such systems.