Conventional optical tweezers, formed at the diffraction-limited focus of a laser beam, have
become a powerful and flexible tool for manipulating micrometre-sized objects. Extending …

Optical trap** and manipulation of micrometre-sized particles was first reported in 1970.
Since then, it has been successfully implemented in two size ranges: the subnanometre …

Diffraction of light prevents optical microscopes from having spatial resolution beyond a
value comparable to the wavelength of the probing light. This essentially means that visible …

The smallest spot sizes are reached by focusing an annular shaped light beam with a high
aperture lens. We show theoretically that the focal area is further reduced when using a …

Recently two emerging areas of research, attosecond and nanoscale physics, have started
to come together. Attosecond physics deals with phenomena occurring when ultrashort laser …

Fluorescence is widely used in optical devices, microscopy imaging, biology, medical
research and diagnosis. Improving fluorescence sensitivity, all the way to the limit of single …

The authors present a detection technique for scattering-type near-field optical microscopy
capable of background interference elimination in the entire near-UV to far-IR spectral …

Electromagnetic field localization in nanoantennas is one of the leitmotivs that drives the
development of plasmonics. The near-fields in these plasmonic nanoantennas are …

We present a new scheme for near-field fluorescence imaging using a metal tip illuminated
with femtosecond laser pulses of proper polarization. The strongly enhanced electric field at …