Optical tweezers (OT) have emerged as an essential tool for manipulating single biological
cells and performing sophisticated biophysical/biomechanical characterizations. Distinct …

The simplicity of hard spheres as a model system is deceptive. Although the particles
interact solely through volume exclusion, that nevertheless suffices for a wealth of static and …

The prospect of self-propelled artificial machines small enough to navigate within biological
matter has fascinated and inspired researchers and the public alike since the dawn of …

We review the combinations of optical micro‐manipulation with other techniques and their
classical and emerging applications to non‐contact optical separation and sorting of micro …

Colloids have increasingly been used to characterize or mimic many aspects of atomic and
molecular systems. With confocal microscopy these colloidal particles can be tracked …

Despite progress in the understanding of crystal nucleation and crystal growth since the first
theories for nucleation were developed, an exact quantitative prediction of the nucleation …

The work described in this thesis details the development of a multicore fibre device that can
be used to optically trap multiple cells and particles. The optical trap** of multiple cells at …

Colloidal model systems allow studying crystallization kinetics under fairly ideal conditions,
with rather well-characterized pair interactions and minimized external influences. In …

Abstract 3D photonic crystals (PhCs) and photonic bandgap (PBG) materials have attracted
considerable scientific and technological interest. In order to provide functionality to PhCs …

Systems of spherical colloidal particles mimic the thermodynamics of atomic crystals. Control
of interparticle interactions in colloids, which has recently begun to be extensively exploited …