David Grier's Home Page

Department of Physics and Center for Soft Matter Research
New York University

Holographic Optical Trapping

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HOTs

Holographic
Optical Tweezers with Computed Holograms

CGH

DHOTs

Quasicrystals

Nanowires

Kinetic
Lock-in

Optical
Peristalsis

Thermal
Ratchets

Two-state
Ratchet

Optical
Vortices

Modulated
Vortices

Vortex
Arrays

Vortex
Pumps

Concentric
Vortices

Ring Traps

Holographic
Microscopy

Tractor
Beams

Knotted
Traps

Optical Tweezers

An optical tweezer uses the forces exerted by a strongly focused beam of light to trap, manipulate, and transform small volumes of matter. Originally introduced by Ashkin, Dziedzic, Bjorkholm and Chu in 1986, optical tweezers have become indispensible tools for research in physics, chemistry, and biology. More recently, optical tweezers have been generalized into a family of optical manipulation tools. This page describes recent advances in optical trapping by David Grier's group at New York University.

Dynamic Holographic Optical Tweezers

If one tightly focused beam of light creates one optical tweezer, then N separate beams can create N simultaneous traps. Holographic Optical Tweezers (HOTs) use computer-generated holograms, also known as diffractive optical elements (DOEs) or kinoforms, to split a single laser beam into any desired fan-out of beams, each of which is relayed to a strongly converging objective lens and focused into a distinct optical trap. This approach can project hundreds of simultaneous optical traps in arbitrary three-dimensional configurations. Each trap can be imbued with unique characteristics, such as the ability to exert torques as well as forces, and the entire trapping pattern can be updated in real time to dynamically reconfigure and transform mesoscopic matter.

The unprecedented access that holographic optical tweezers provide to structures and processes at length scales ranging from tens of nanometers to hundreds of micrometers creates new avenues for fundamental research in physics, chemistry, biology, and several branches of engineering. Holographic optical tweezers also have immediate practical applications in areas as diverse as biomedical testing and diagnostics, photonics manufacturing, biological and chemical sensor fabrication, and assembly of hierarchically structured functional nanocomposite materials.

Holographic optical tweezers were invented by Eric Dufresne and David Grier at The University of Chicago in 1997. The original reference to the technique is

E. R. Dufresne and D. G. Grier, "Optical tweezer arrays and optical substrates created with diffractive optical elements," Rev. Sci. Instr. 69, 1974-1977 (1998).

The patent on holographic optical tweezers was exclusively licensed to Arryx, Inc. in 2000.

Arryx's commercial implementation of dynamic holographic optical tweezers, the BioRyx 200 ™ system, was honored with an R&D 100 Award for Technical Innovation in 2002.

Optical Trapping Links

Optical Tweezers Links and Resources from the Optical Trapping Group at the University of St. Andrews.
Grover Swartzlander's Singular Optics Reference site.

Contact Information

David G. Grier             Department of Physics
                           Center for Soft Matter Research
(212) 998-3713 (voice)     New York University
(212) 995-4016 (FAX)       726 Broadway
david.grier@nyu.edu        New York, NY 10003

Last Modified: Tue Sep 10 13:29:56 EDT 2024