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Source: The post is based on the article “New way to track particles in soft colloids using optical tweezers can be applied in targeted drug delivery” published in PIB on 5th May 2023
What is the News?
Scientists have found a way to track minute clay particle movements within soft clay colloids using Optical Tweezers.
What are Optical Tweezers?
Optical tweezers are scientific instruments that use a highly focused laser beam to hold and move microscopic and sub-microscopic objects like atoms, nanoparticles and droplets in a manner similar to tweezers.
In 1987, Arthur Ashkin succeeded in capturing living bacteria without harming them.
Applications: Optical tweezers are used in:
1) biology and medicine (for example to grab and hold a single bacterium, a cell like a blood cell, or a molecule like DNA), 2) nanoengineering and nanochemistry (to study and build materials from single molecules), 3) quantum optics and quantum optomechanics (to study the interaction of single particles with light).
Nobel Prize in Physics: The development of optical tweezing by Arthur Ashkin was lauded with the 2018 Nobel Prize in Physics.
