Lights, action: optical tweezers

Optical tweezers were ®rst realized 15 years ago by Arthur Ashkin and co-workers at the Bell Telephone Laboratories. Since that time there has been a steady stream of developments and applications , particularly in the biologica l ®eld. In the last 5 years the ̄ow of work using optical tweezers has increased signi®cantly, and it seems as if they are set to become a mainstream tool within biologica l and nanotechnologica l ®elds. In this article we seek to explain the underpinning mechanism behind optical tweezers, to review the main application s of optical tweezers to date, to present some recent technological advances and to speculate on future application s within both biologica l and non-biologica l ®elds.