Dec. 11, 2012

Cobolt Zouk 355 nm 20mW: High Performance, Single Frequency DPSS Laser

The Cobolt Zouk is a continuous-wave (CW) single-frequency DPSS laser operating at 355 nm in a perfect quality TEM00 beam (M2<1.1) and with 10 or 20 mW output power.
A proprietary laser cavity design provides ultra-low noise performance of typically <0.2% rms (over 20 Hz-20MHz and over 10-40ºC), a narrow spectral linewidth of <1MHz and immunity to optical feedback. moreOct. 09, 2012

Power Scaling of CW Single-Frequency Lasers

Cobolt has recently introduced four new high power laser models on the 05-01 platform for high power single-frequency DPSS lasers.

The Cobolt Zouk 355 nm is now available with an output power up to 20mW, the Cobolt Samba 532 nm up to 1.5W, the Cobolt Flamenco 660 nm up to 0.5W and the Cobolt Rumba at 1064nm up to 3W.  moreOct. 08, 2012

Imaging Bacterium with Light-scanning Optical Trap

Scientists from the Department of Microsystems Engineering (IMTEK) of the University of Freiburg have constructed an innovative new optical trap that can grab and scan tiny elongated bacteria with the help of a laser. The physicists Prof. Dr. Alexander Rohrbach und Matthias Koch created a kind of light tube that traps the agile unicellular organisms. Optical tweezers could previously only be used to grab bacteria at one point, not to manipulate their orientation.
moreSep. 21, 2012

Low-powered Nanotweezers May Benefit Cellular-level Studies

Using ultra-low input power densities, researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have demonstrated for the first time how low-power "optical nanotweezers" can be used to trap, manipulate, and probe nanoparticles, including fragile biological samples.
moreNov. 25, 2011

High Resolution Optical Tweezers for Single-Molecule Studies of Eukaryotic Transcription

Investigating mechanical aspects of single RNA polymerases will further our understanding of the molecular mechanism of transcription elongation.
moreNov. 24, 2011

Drag Reduction by DNA-grafting for Single Microspheres in a Dilute λ-DNA Solution

The fluid resistance of single micrometre-sized blank and DNA-grafted polystyrene microspheres under shear flow is compared in purified water and dilute λ-DNA solutions by means of optical tweezers experiments with a high spatial (±4 nm) and temporal (±0.2 ms) resolution.
moreOct. 18, 2011

Applications of Scanning Probe Microscopy and Optical Tweezers

JPK Instruments recently hosted their 10th annual international symposium on the applications of scanning probe microscopy (SPM) and optical tweezers. Held this month in the historic Umspannwerk Ost in Berlin, Germany the meeting brought together more than 100 scientists from around the world. The combination of papers and posters inspired excellent discussions as attendees presented their results and shared scientific know how in a relaxed and informal atmosphere. moreOct. 14, 2011

Optical Tweezers Poster Award

The Scanning Probe Microscopy and Optical Tweezers communities were meeting again this year in Berlin, Germany at the 10th International Symposium on Scanning Probe Microscopy & Optical Tweezers in Life Sciences to present and discuss their recent results. moreSep. 27, 2011

Plasmonic Nano-tweezers Trap Tightly without Overheating

Engineers at Harvard have created a device that may make it easier to isolate and study tiny particles such as viruses. Their plasmonic nano-tweezers,  use light from a laser to trap nanoscale particles. The new device creates strong forces more efficiently than traditional optical tweezers and eliminates a problem that caused earlier setups to overheat. The results were published in Nature Communications.
moreAug. 04, 2011

Consistent Isolation and Fluorescence Imaging of Individual Atoms

We describe new methods to consistently isolate and image individual atoms. We isolate one atom by inducing inelastic light assisted collisions in a group of atoms held in optical tweezers. Each atom pair that undergoes a collision gains enough energy for only one of the atoms to leave the optical tweezers, leading to a single atom remaining. This atom is imaged using fluorescence microscopy. more