Optical tweezers: Getting a handle on the microscopic biological world

Optical tweezers are an important tool for use as non-contact micromanipulators of biological cells and organisms. The ability to apply optical forces in the pN regime means that optical tweezers can also be used as transducers of the fundamental forces responsible for cell locomotion, cell adhesion, and intracellular transport. Herein, we describe our recent results in modeling and measuring the optical trapping forces that are applied to dielectric microsphere and biological sperm cell samples. >