event
Thursday 08 Dec 2016: Trapping and Imaging in a Material World
Prof. Kishan Dholakia - University of St. Andrews
HAR/170 (3D Visualisation Suite) 12:30-13:30
The talk will cover the use of shaped light beams for imaging and manipulation with a particular emphasis on the use of materials science. I will introduce the field of shaping light in free space and show applications particularly in light sheet imaging using Airy light fields for neuroscience and developmental biology [1]. I will move onto manipulation of mesoscopic particles and show the impact of shaped light and how the combination of shaped light and novel particle synthesis or the use of silicon nanostructures can lead to new effects [2]. Examples will include slow light to silicon nanostructures to speed up particle motion [3], the generation of spherical vaterite and nanovaterite crystals for rotation in liquid, air and vacuum, reaching rates of 10MHz [4]. This latter work currently holds the Guinness world record for the fastest man-made rotation and is a step to understanding quantum friction.
[1] Nature Methods 11, 541 (2014)
[2] ACS Photonics 3, 719 (2016)
[3] Optica 2, 816 (2015)
[4] Nature Communications 3,2374 (2013)