UCL Optical Tweezers Group:  News archive

2021

PhD studentship on collaborative project with Yuval Elani (Imperial) and Guido Bolognesi (U Loughborough) on 'Characterisation of interfacial biological materials' as part of the ACM-CDT. Contact Phil for more details

Phil is giving a seminar for the SPIE Student Chapter of IISER Kolkata, Wed 08 Dec 21

Welcome to Anna Jorgensen, who has joined the group for a TransPharmTech CDT MRes project, jointly supervised by Dr Dario Carugo (UCL School of Pharmacy)

'Femtonewton Force Sensing with Optically Trapped Nanotubes', Nano Letters 8 3211-3216 (2008) reaches 100 citations (Scopus)

A warm welcome to our new group members: PhD student Shiyi Chen, and MSci students Espen Bergqvist and Unik Limbu

A third volume of the Special Issue of Micromachines devoted to optical trapping is now accepting submissions.  Check out the papers in volume 1 and volume 2

Optical trapping and manipulation of nanostructures Nat. Nanotech. 8 807-819 (2013) reaches 600 citations (Scopus)

The Special Issue of Micromachines Optical Trapping and Manipulation: From Fundamentals to Applications has been reprinted as a freely available online book

Paper H de Belly et al 'Membrane tension gates ERK-mediated regulation of pluripotent cell fate', Cell Stem Cell 28 1-12 (2021) published

2020

Paper G Pesce et al 'Optical tweezers: theory and practice' published in EPJ Plus Focus Issue 'Light Pressure Across All Scales'. Eur. Phys. J. Plus 135 949 (2020)

Brownian motion of graphene ACS Nano 4 7515 (2010) reaches 150 citations (Scopus)

Welcome to our new project students Shiyi Chen and Haozhe Shen

Progress meeting of the MSC-ITN ActiveMatter to take place Thu 10 Sep

A short article on Optical Tweezers is published in Revista Universitaria (Mexico).  Thanks to Dr Eric Rosas for the translation!

On Thu 3rd Sep Phil will be giving a talk at Photon 2020 on 'Optical Binding in Two and Three Dimensions'

Optical trapping and manipulation of nanostructures Nat. Nanotech. 8 807-819 (2013) reaches 500 citations (Scopus)

On Tuesday 5th May (12pm EST, 5pm BST) Phil will be giving an OSA Webinar on 'Optical Trapping of Deformable Material'. Register here.

The complete Special Issue of Micromachines on Optical Trapping and Manipulation: From Fundamentals to Applications with eight papers has now been published

Welcome to Riccardo Tognato who has joined the Optical Tweezers Group

Prof Erika Eiser (Cambridge University) is giving today's Chemical Engineering seminar on Optofluidic crystallization of colloids tethered at interfaces

Following the success of the first Special issue of Micromachines on Optical Trapping and Manipulation: From Fundamentals to Applications, we are pleased to announce Optical Trapping and Manipulation: From Fundamentals to Applications Volume 2 with guest editor Dan Burnham is open for submissions and due for publication in 2021

The website for the MSC-ITN ActiveMatter is now online at active-matter.eu

Welcome to new PhD student Sandrine Heijnen, who has joined the MSC-ITN ActiveMatter to work on a project co-supervised with Giorgio Volpe (UCL Chemistry)

2019

Optical trapping and manipulation of nanostructures Nat. Nanotech. 8 807-819 (2013) reaches 450 citations (Scopus)

New Wellcome Trust funded PhD programme in Optical Biology starting in September 2020.   Applications open 30 Oct 19 - 13 Dec 19

Preprint on bioRxiv H. De Belly et al, Membrane tension mediated mechanotransduction drives fate choice in embryonic stem cells 

Welcome to our new students, Kumail Kermalli and Yuhan Wang

Phil is giving a talk on Optical trapping of deformable material at the QLM Summer School, Southampton; 08 Jul 19

Biological Physics Group retreat at West Dean College, Sussex; 02-03 Jul 19

Phil will be giving a talk on Optical tweezers for soft matter experiments at London Light's Late Light 2019

Optical trapping and manipulation of nanostructures Nat. Nanotech. 8 807-819 (2013) reaches 400 citations (Scopus)

Congratulations to Nick Tidy for successfully defending his thesis

We have two funded PhD studentships for projects to start in September 2019.  See this announcement for project descriptions and funding eligibility

Applications to the Centre for Doctoral Training in Advaned Characterisation of Materials are now open.  We are offering a project Nanomechanical characterisation of soft materials jointly with Valeria Garbin (Imperial College).  Contact Phil for more details

IPLS seminar by Sabine Hauert (Bristol University) on Swarm engineering across scales; Wed 16 Jan 19

2018

Special issue of Micromachines on "Optical Trapping and Manipulation: From Fundamentals to Applications", with guest editor Dan Burnham open for submissions

MSC-ITN ActiveMatter has been awarded.  Watch this space for more news in 2019

PHAS0035 "press conference" on our Scientific Reports paper on red blood cell stretching, Tue 30 Oct 18

Optical trapping and manipulation of nanostructures Nat. Nanotech. 8 807-819 (2013) reaches 350 citations (Scopus)

To celebrate Arthur Ashkin's Nobel Prize you can download three free chapters from our book Optical Tweezers: Principles & Applications.  And if you would like to buy the book a 20% discount is available for a limited time only.

Congratulations to former PhD student Tom Smart for winning the Biological Physics Group Thesis Prize for 2018

Congratulations to Arthur Ashkin for his share in the 2018 Nobel Prize in Physics

Welcome to new Optical Tweezers group members Jade Li and Yassine Benlamkadem

Nuno Araujo (Universidade de Lisboa) is giving the Chemistry Department seminar on Dynamics of self-organization of colloidal particles under confinement; 2pm Tue 11 Sep 18

Our paper A microscopic Kapitza pendulum has been published in Scientific Reports

Our paper Non-occlusive retinal vascular inflammation and role of red blood cell deformability in birdshot chorioretinopathy has been published in Ocular Immunology and Inflammation

Hyunseok Oh (Seoul National University) has joined the group on the UCL-SNU exchange scheme

Optical trapping and manipulation of nanostructures Nat. Nanotech. 8 807-819 (2013) reaches 300 citations (Scopus)

Phil will be at Photonex Scotland Thu 14 Jun 18 to talk about our red blood cell stretching experiments

Dominik Kufel has joined the group with an EPSRC Vacation Bursary

Phil will be at the Optical Trapping Summer School at U Gothenburg, 29 May - 01 Jun to give lectures on Optical trapping deformable material and Optical binding

London Institute for Advanced Light Technologies launch event at KCL Wed 09 May 18

Malte Gather (St Andrews) is giving todays' LCN Biophysics seminar on Micro- and nano-photonic devices for cell tracking, cellular mechanics and optogenetics; Wed 25 Apr 18

Photonex London at UCL Wed 18 Apr 18

The second annual meeting of the UCL Soft Matter Network will be on Mon 11 Jun 18

Second round of applications open for the CDT in Advanced Characterisation of Materials incuding project Nanomechanical characterisation of soft materials (jointly with Valeria Garbin, Imperial College).  Contact Phil for more details

Optical Trapping Summer School 2018 (OTS²-2018) at U Gothenburg, 29 May - 01 Jun 2018

Frank Vollmer (Exeter) is visiting and giving a seminar on Exploring the Nanoscale with Optoplasmonic Sensors; Wed 07 Feb

Congratulations to Tom for successfully defending his thesis!

Our paper Optical trapping and optical force positioning of two-dimensional materials is published as M. G. Donato et al, Nanoscale 10 1245-1255 (2018)

2017

Optical trapping and manipulation of nanostructures Nat. Nanotech. 8 807-819 (2013) reaches 250 citations (Scopus)

Phil's inaugural lecture will be 3pm, Wed 06 Dec 17 in 26 Bedford Way G03.

Congratulations to Chris for successfully defending his thesis!

Congratulations to Tom Smart for submitting his thesis!

Applications open for UCL Graduate Research Scholarships and Overseas Research Scholarships. Contact us if you are interested in applying for a PhD with the Optical Tweezers Group

Pavel Zemanek (ISI Brno) is visiting and giving a seminar on 'Micro-objects propelled by spatially structured laser beams'; Wed 15 Nov 

Lukas Novotny (ETH Zurich) is giving today's AMOPP seminar on 'Levitated quantum nanophotonics'; Wed 01 Nov

PHAS2901 "press conference" on our Scientific Reports paper on red blood cell stretching, Tue 31 Oct 17

Welcome to new group members for 2017: MSci project students Harriet & Ronit, and MAPS3001 student Sean

SPIE Conference Proceedings from OTOM XIV 'Microbubble trapping in inverted optical tweezers' published

Two PhD studentships for Nov 2017 start available in CDT in Advanced Characterisation of Materials incuding project Nanomechanical characterisation of soft materials (jointly with Valeria Garbin, Imperial College).  Contact Phil for more details

Masoud Fakhrabadi (University of Padova) is visiting the group today

This week Tom is attending OTOM XIV at SPIE Optics & Photonics in San Diego

'Brownian Motion of Graphene' ACS Nano 4 7515-7523 (2010) reaches 100 citations (Scopus)

Gamze Islamoglu and Gizem Ozdil from Bogazici University have joined the group on the Erasmus+ Mobility for Traineeship programme

Optical Tweezers: Principles & Applications reviewed in Contemporary Physics 58 203 (2017): "...it’s about time a book like this has been issued..."

Our paper Tight focusing of radially polarized beams modulated by a fractal conical lens has been published as Opt. Commun. 402 231-237 (2017)

First meeting of the UCL Cross-Disciplinary Network on Soft Materials; Mon 19 Jun 2017

Our paper Optical binding of nanowires has been published as Nano Lett. 17 3485-3492 (2017)

Our paper Acoustic force measurements on polymer-coated microbubbles in a microfluidic device has been published as J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 141 3364-3378 (1027)

Optical trapping and manipulation of nanostructures Nat. Nanotech. 8 807-819 (2013) reaches 200 citations (Scopus)

New video on our YouTube page: an ultralow interfacial tension oil droplet being deformed in optical tweezers

Silvia Vignolini is giving the Chemistry Department seminar on Cellulose photonics: from nature to applications; Wed 01 Mar 17

Riccardo Sapienza is giving today's Chemistry Department seminar on Unconventional lasing design, from photonic networks to biolasers

Diego Baresch is visiting Tue 21 Feb, and giving a seminar on Single-beam acoustical tweezers

Piotr is giving a seminar on Soft, light-driven bioinspired robots at micrometer and millimetre scales; 10am, Tue 14 Feb 17

PhD project Nanomechanical characterisation of soft materials available for 2016 applicants to the CDT in Advanced Characterisation of Materials

PhD studentship available in UCL Biological Physics Group.  Contact Phil if you are interested in a project in the Optical Tweezers

Our paper Fractal conical lens optical tweezers has been published as IEEE Photonics Journal 9 6500111 (2017)

2016

Special seminar by Dr Barbara Fazio (IPCF-CNR): A Black Forest of Silicon Nanowires

Our paper Radiation forces acting upon a Rayleigh particle by highly focused alternate radially- and azimuthally-polarized beams modulated by a Devil's Lens has been published as JOSA A 33 2501-2509 (2016)

Chris (F) has been awarded his PhD.  Congratulations Dr Fury!

PHAS2901 "press conference" on our Scientific Reports paper on red blood cell stretching, Tue 01 Nov 16

Lecture slides for CoMPLEx ITPL/Nanotechnology MSc lecture on Optical Tweezers Mon 31 Oct 16 available here

Our paper 'Optically bound colloidal lattices in evanescent optical fields' published as Optics Letters 41 4935 (2016)

Congratulations to Chris (F) for submitting his final (corrected) thesis, 'Acousto-optical trapping and manipulation of microbubbles'

Advanced Characteristaion of Materials CDT now accepting PhD applications.  Project in Optical Tweezers Group: Nanomechanical characterisation of soft materials

Ines Hidalgo Manzanera has joined the group for a MAPS3000 project on Optical tweezers in cell biology

Natalia Tokarova has joned the group for an MSci project on Microswimmers

Optical trapping and manipulation of nanostructures Nat. Nanotech. 8 807-819 (2013) reaches 150 citations (Scopus)

SPIE conference proceedings from OTOM XIII 'Optical Kapitza pendulum' published

Tom is attending the PHOTON16 conference with a poster about our work on dynamical stabilisation

Dr Piotr Wasylczyk has joined the group as a visiting researcher

Phil will be at SPIE OTOM XIII in San Diego to give a talk on our work on dynamical stabilization (Sun 28 Aug)

Weronika Lamperska has joined the group as a visiting student, Aug 2016

Paper Photonic torque microscopy of the non-conservative force field for optically trapped silicon nanowires published as Nano Lett. 16 4181 (2016)

Postdoc position on manipulation and destruction of cancer cells using optical and acoustic forces available.  Contact Phil for details

Congratulations to Chris F on passing his viva

Optical Tweezers: Principles & Applications reviewed in OSA Optics & Photonics News: "destined to become a classic"

Paper Analysis of the uncertainty in microbubble characterisation published in Ultrasound Med Biol 6 1412 (2016)

Hayden Fu has joined the group for a summer research project on optical fibre traps

MSci Projects for Physics & Natural Sciences students available for 2016-17.  See moodle database or contact Phil for details.

Optical Tweezers: Principles & Applications sold out in the UK.  More stock coming soon!

Phil is giving a talk at the Highland Spring School on Mesoscopic Physics, Trest CZ, 16-18 May 16

Congratulations to Chris F for submitting his thesis

Tom & Chris R are attending the Photonex London meeting Mon 11 Apr 16 with a poster about our red blood cell stretching work recently published in Scientific Reports

We have been awarded an Institutional Links grant from the British Council Newton Fund with Dr Burcin Unlu (Bogazici University)

Our paper on assessing the stiffness of red blood cells from patients with diabetic retinopathy is published in Scientific Reports 6 15873 (2016)

Optical Tweezers: Principles and Applications reviewed in J Quant Spect Rad Transf: "...a must for all Ph.D. students, researchers, and engineers..."

Optical trapping and manipulation of nanostructures Nat. Nanotech. 8 807-819 (2013) reaches 100 citations (Scopus)

Dr Zhirong Liu has joined the group as a visiting researcher from East China Jiaotong University

Onofrio Marago and Giovanni Volpe are visiting this week, 02 Mar 16

PhD project Nanomechanical characterisation of soft materials available for 2016 applicants to the CDT in Advanced Characterisation of Materials

Optical Tweezers: Principles & Applications published by Cambridge University Press now available in the Americas, Feb 2016

Five undergraduate summer research bursaries with the UCL Institute for the Physics of Living Systems available for summer 2016

Optical trapping and manipulation of nanostructures Nat. Nanotech. 8 807-819 (2013) ranked in the top 1% of cited papers in Physics in Web of Science

Defining the Roadmap for Understanding the Physics of Life, Wed 27 Jan 16 at the Natural History Museum

LCN/Physics/School of Pharmacy "Meet & greet" event, 10am Wed 20 Jan 16

2015

Optical Tweezers: Principles & Applications published by Cambridge University Press, 03 Dec 15.

Review paper Red blood cells in retinal vascular disorders published as Blood Cells, Molecules and Diseases 56 53-61 (2016)

OSA Lecture by Prof Donna Strickland; Fri 13 Nov, 4pm at City U

OSA London Local Section meeting at City U; Fri 13 Nov

LCN colloquium by Prof Nynnke Dekker on The impact of physics on discoveries in the biomolecular world, Wed 11 Nov 15

PHAS2901 "press conference" on deformability measurements on red blood cells: 1.30pm Tue 03 Nov

Movie of red blood cell being stretched by optical tweezers on our YouTube channel

Tom is visiting Onofrio Marago at IPCF-CNR, Messina on a Short-Term Scientific Mission under the COST Action on Optofluidics

Nick is visiting the Biological Soft Matter Group of Dr Tsutomu Hamada at JAIST from Mon 12 Oct 15

Welcome to new group members for 2015-16 Kiran Govind and Alice Shipley

Our paper Assessment of red blood cell deformability by optical tweezers in diabetic retinopathy has been accepted for publication in Scientific Reports

SPIE conference proceedings from OTOM XII published including our papers on red blood cell deformability, fluctuation correlations of trapped particles, and dynamical stabilisation.

A Step-by-step Guide to the Realisation of Advanced Optical Tweezers is the ninth most downloaded paper from JOSA B in August 2015

Our paper Evanescent wave optical binding forces on spherical microparticles has been published as Optics Letters 40 4042-4045 (2015)

Chris R & Tom are attending SPIE Optical Trapping & Optical Manipulation 09-12 Aug 2015, and presenting three posters on their work

A Step-by-step Guide to the Realisation of Advanced Optical Tweezers is the fourth most downloaded paper from JOSA B in June 2015, and the introduction to the Optical Cooling and Trapping Special Issue is third.

Our textbook Optical Tweezers: Principles & Applications will be published by Cambridge University Press in October 2015. Available to pre-order from CUP or Amazon from 09 July 2015

Our paper A Step-by-step Guide to the Realisation of Advanced Optical Tweezers is second in the top 10 most downloaded papers from JOSA B in May 2015, and the introduction to the Optical Cooling and Trapping Special Issue is third.

Phil is visiting @OxColloidsGroup at the PTCL (Oxford University) to give a seminar, Tue 15 Jun 15

Phil is giving a talk Push, pull, spin, squeeze: optical force on microparticles to the UCL Physics Society, Tue 02 Jun 15

Our paper Radiation forces on a Rayleigh particle by highly focused radially polarized beams modulated by Devil's Vortex Lens has been published as JOSA A 32 797-802 (2015)

Our paper A Step-by-step Guide to the Realisation of Advanced Optical Tweezers is in the top 10 most downloaded papers from JOSA B in April 2015

MSci projects for Physics and Natural Sciences students available for 2015-16.  Contact Phil Jones for details. For examples of previous projects in the group see here

Our paper A Step-by-step Guide to the Realisation of Advanced Optical Tweezers has been published as JOSA B 32 B84-B98 (2015)

Optics Express Focus Issue on Optical Cooling & Trapping now available

Evidence that our new optical fibre trap is working! See the movie of trapped particles in this video

Our paper Devil's Lens Optical Tweezers has been published as Optics Express 23 8190-8199 (2015)

Undergraduate vacation bursaries in UCL Physics available. Contact Phil if you are interested in a project in our group

Conference Proceedings from Compex Light & Optical Forces at SPIE Photonics West on Dynamical Stabilisation in Optical Tweezers now published

Phil is giving a talk at the UCL Institute for the Physics of Living Systems monthly meet-up on Optical tweezers for biology and soft matter; Wed 04 Mar 15

Crick Symposium: Biophysics and Bioengineering across scales - from molecules to tissues; Wed 25 Feb 15

Phil will be at SPIE Photonics West to give a talk about Dynamical Stabilisation in Optical Tweezers

Julia Yeomans (Oxford) will give the Physics Department colloquium on Active matter; Wed 04 Feb 15

Martin Howard (John Innes Centre) will give the IoP Tom Duke Prize Lecture on Physics in biology: how to set the size of a cell; Wed 28 Jan

Roel Dullens (Oxford) is giving the Physical Chemistry seminar on Dynamic mode locking in driven colloids; Wed 28 Jan

Mark Leake (York) is giving today's LCN/Biophysics seminar on Probing DNA interactions with proteins at the single-molecule level inside the cell, in a test tube, and in a computer

MAPS Faculty Research Festival Wed 07 Jan 15, including talk by Phil on Current Research in Biological Physics

2014

The 2014 Bragg Lecture will be given by Prof Ilme Schlichting on X-ray free electron lasers - a bright future for crystallography, Wed 12 Nov

OSA London Local Section Meeting, Wed 28 October at City University

Prof Sir John Pendry will give the 41st Edwards Lecture at City University titled Putting on the cloak of concealment, Wed 28 Oct 14

Valeria Garbin will be giving the Chemical Engineering Department seminar on Extreme deformation of complex fluid interfaces, Wed 21 Oct

London Super-Resolution Group meeting, Fri 17 Oct. Talks by Shukry Habib (KCL), Ashley Cadby (Sheffield), Dylan Owen (KCL) & Justin Molloy (NIMR)

The Biological Physics Group will have PhD positions available to start in September 2015.  See the group website for possible research topics.

SPIE conference proceedings from OTOM XI on Multiscale manipulation of microbubbles employing simultaneous optical and acoustical trapping now published

CoMPLEX MRes / MSc Nanotechnology lecture on Optical Tweezers, Tue 07 Oct 14, 2pmStefan Siwiak-Jaszek has joined the group for his MSci project

Nick Tidy has joined the group for a PhD to work on optical tweezing of artificial vesicles with our collaborators at JAIST

Image Quantification (IQ) Club talk by Dylan Owen (KCL) on Analysing protein localisation and dynamics in immune cells at super-resolution, Wed 10 Sep, 4pm

Joint Special Issue of Optics Express and JOSA B on Optical Cooling & Trapping announced. Submit papers by 05 Jan 15.

Chris F is at the SPIE OTOM XI conference 17-21 Aug 14, with a poster on Multi-scale manipulation of microbubbles employing simultaneous optical and acoustical trapping. Watch movies from his poster here and here.

Congratulations to Chris Fury for winning a poster prize at the Leeds Microbubble Symposium 2014

Tanya Monro (Adelaide University) is giving a seminar on New Direction in Photonics Down Under at City University, Mon 09 Jun

MSci projects for Physics and Natural Sciences students available for 2014-15.  Contact Phil Jones for details. For examples of previous projects in the group see here

Helen Czerski will give the Physics Department colloquium on The Scaling of Reality: A Problem for both Bubble Physics and Science Media, Wed 14 May

SPIE proceedings from Nanophotonics V at SPIE Europe on Experimental characterisation of holographic optical traps for microbubbles now published

Paper Laser vibrometry characterisation of a microfluidic lab-on-a-chip device: a preliminary investigation published in J Phys: Conf Ser 498 012002 (2014)

Professor Steven Chu will give the 2014 Harrie Massey Lecture at UCL on Energy and Climate Change: Challenges and Opportunities, Wed 19 Mar 14

Phil is giving at talk at the NanoSpain 2014 conference in Madrid, 11-14 Mar 14

CoMPLEX CP3 project on measuring airway surface liquid layer depth available, co-supervised by Dr Guy Moss, 04 Mar 14

OSA Student Chapter (Messina) & EPS Young Minds Group (Messina) are holding a one-day symposium on "Optical Forces: from atoms to soft-matter", Wed 26 Feb 14

LCN Biophysics seminar by Dylan Owen (KCL) on probing the nano-organisation of the cell membrane, Wed 19 Feb 14

MAPS Faculty Postgraduate Open Day, Fri 24 Jan 14

LCN Biophysics seminar by Susan Cox (KCL) on Accelerating localisation microscopy, Wed 08 Jan 14

2013

PhD studentship in membrane engineering of artificial lipid vesicles available 16 Dec 13

Markus Oberthaler (Heidelberg University) is giving the AMOP Physics seminar on Atom interferometry: yesterday, today and tomorrow, Wed 11 Dec 13

Sile Nic Chormaic (OIST, Japan) is visiting today, Mon 09 Dec 13

There will be an Open Day for students interested in a PhD in AMOP Physics at UCL on Wed 04 Dec 13

Alan Lowe (UCL) will give the AMOPP/BioPhys seminar 'Single-molecule fluorescence microscopy reveals the inner workings of cells', Wed 13 Nov 13

Our paper 'Optical trapping and manipulation of nanostructures' has been published in Nature Nanotechnology 8 807-819 (2013)

The new OSA Optical Cooling and Trapping Technical Group web page is now online

Prof Paul Chaikin will give the 2013 Bragg Lecture on Some small steps towards artificial life, Wed 30 Oct 13

Congratulations to Marios Sergides on passing his PhD viva, 22 Oct 13

Phil is giving a talk on Lasers to the Natural Sciences Society of St Olave's Grammar School, Orpington, 18 Oct 13 

SPIE conference proceedings from Optical Trapping and Optical Micromanipulation X on optical binding of nanowires now published

CoMPLEX MRes / MSc Nanotechnology lecture on Optical Tweezers, Tue 08 Oct 13, 2pm

Adam Plowman has joined the group for his MSci Physics project on Microswimmers

Alessandro Magazzu (University of Messina) is joining us today as a visiting student under the EU COST Action MP1205 on Optofluidics

Chris Richards and Tom Smart have joined the Optical Tweezers Group for ther PhDs

Entry Optical tweezers published in Taylor & Francis Encyclopedia of Optical Engineering

Congratulations to former PhD student Susan Skelton, who has won the Carey Foster Prize for 2013 for the best PhD thesis in AMOP Physics at UCL

Our review paper 'Optical trapping and manipulation of nanostructures' has been accepted for publication in Nature Nanotechnology

Paper from AFPAC 2012 published 'Theoretical characterisation of the radial and translational motion of coated microbubbles under acoustic excitation', J. Phys: Conf. Ser. 457 012001 (2013)

We are pleased to welcome Prof Jixiong Pu (Huaqiao University) to the group as a distinguished visiting scholar 25 Jul - 08 Sep 13

Onofrio Marago and Giovanni Volpe are visiting this week, 08-12 Jul 13

Adam & Nat's project Konnect - The smart lecture experience has been awarded funding in the JISC Summer of Student Innovation competition

Congratulations to Zhi Hao Wong who has won the MAPS Faculty Medal for the best performance in final year exams, and also the Physics Department William Bragg Prize for best overall undergraduate

Congratulations to Marios Sergides, who has won a JSPS Fellowship to work with Dr Sile Nic Chormaic at OIST

Adam & Nat have entered their idea Konnect - The smart lecture experience into the JISC Summer of Student Innovation competition

Mark Ransley is re-joining the group for a CoMPLEX summer project, co-supervised by Dr Geraint Thomas

Juanjo Saenz (Universidad Autonoma de Madrid) is visiting and giving a talk on Scattering Asymmetry and Non-conservative Optical Forces, Fri 10 May 13

Matt Jones (Durham) is giving today's AMOPP seminar on Many-body physics with Group II Rydberg atoms, Wed 08 May 13

Isabel Llorente Garcia has joined the department as a UCL Excellence Fellow

MSci projects for Physics and Natural Sciences students available for 2013-14.  Contact Phil Jones for details

Simon Cornish (Durham University) is giving today's AMOPP seminar on Bose-Einstein condensation with tunable interactions, Wed 24 Apr 13

Prof Phillippe Marmottant will be addressing the next meeting of the Bubble Users Group at UCL, Wed 23 Apr 13

Phil and Onofrio are visiting Giovanni Volpe at Bilkent Unversity, Ankara, 17-19 Apr 13

PHOTOPTICS 2014 2nd International Conference on Photonics, Optics and Laser Technology taking place in Lisbon, 07-09 Jan 14

Phil's article Optical Tweezers will appear in the next edition of the Encyclopedia of Optical Engineering

POP! The sound of bubbles will be at the Big Bang Science Fair, 14-17 Mar

Dr Susan Skelton is leaving the group to take up a postdoc position at the University of Osaka

Two PhD studentships for 'Exploring stochastic thermodynamics with optical traps' available for 2013 start.  Contact Phil Jones for details.

Congratulations to Susan Skelton who successfully defended her PhD thesis, Mon 18 Feb 13

AMOP Physics postgraduate Open Day, Wed 13 Feb 13

Phil is giving a talk about studying physics at university at Haberdashers' Aske's School for Girls, Thu 07 Feb

Simon Hanna (Bristol University) is visiting and giving the AMOPP/BioP seminar on Optimising forces and torques for optical micromanipulation, 30 Jan 13

Onofrio Marago (IPCF-CNR, Messina) is visiting, 30 Jan 13

Mark Ransley is joining the group for a CoMPLEX CP2 project, co-supervised by Geraint Thomas

Marios is visiting the group of Dr Sile Nic Chormaic in OIST, Japan, 12-22 Jan 13

CoMPLEX CP2 presentation on biological interferometry Wed 09 Jan 13, with Geraint Thomas

Paper Trapping volume control in optical tweezers using cylindrical vector beams published in Opt. Lett. 38 28-30 (2013)

2012

UCL Consortium wins funding for Next Generation Optical Microscopy from MRC

Project 'Exploring stochastic thermodynamics with optical traps' has been funded by the Leverhulme Trust

Our paper Trapping volume control in optical tweezers using cylindrical vector beams has been accepted for publication in Optics Letters

IoP / Nuffield Foundation Undergraduate Research Scheme 2013 now open for applications.  Contact Phil Jones if you are interested in applying for an award to work in the Optical Tweezers Group

Pietro Cicuta (Cambridge University) is visiting and giving the AMOPP/BioP seminar on Emergence of collective states in active colloids, Wed 07 Nov 12

Paper Evanescent wave optical trapping and transport of micro- and nanoparticles on tapered optical fibers published in J. Quant. Spect. Rad. Transf. 113 2512-2520 (2012)

Jonathan Reid (Bristol University) is giving the Physical Chemistry seminar on Aerosols: From climate science to drug delivery, 2pm Wed 10 Oct

CoMPLEX MRes / MSc Nanotechnology lecture on Optical Tweezers, Wed 09 Oct 12, 2pm

SPIE conference proceedings from Optical Trapping and Optical Micromanipulation IX on microbubble squeezing, radially polarized traps and optical binding now published

Our paper Optical trapping of nanotubes with cylindrical vector beams has been selected for inclusion in the latest issue of Virtual Journal of Biomedical Optics

Chris Richards and Zhi Wong are joining the group for their Physics MSci projects

Marios and Susan are attending the SPIE Optics + Photonics 2012 conference in San Diego, CA, 12-16 Aug 12

Our paper Optical trapping of nanotubes with cylindrical vector beams is published in Optics Letters 37 3381 (2012)sts

Onofrio Marago (IPCF-CNR, Messina) is visiting, 17-20 Jul 12

Our exhibit POP! The sound of bubbles is at the Royal Society Summer Exhibition 2012 this week until Sun 08 Jul. Gianluca explains some of the science in this BBC report (from 1'00")

Our paper Optical trapping and deformation of microbubbles in a dual-beam fibre-optic trap is now published in Journal of Optics and included in the IoPscience featured articles collection

One day meeting on Fluctuations in dynamical systems far from equilbrium, Wed 27 Jun at QMUL

New animation of an 'optically squeezed' microbubble on our YouTube page

NOIs project review meeting at IQOQI Innsbruck, Tue 13 June

Paper Evanescent wave optical trapping and transport of micro- and nanoparticles on tapered optical fibers accepted for publication in JQSRT

Phil is giving a talk at the IPCF General Meeting, Cetraro, 21-23 May

CoMPLEX MRes summer projects on microscopy applications available for 2012.  See project listings for details

Chris Fury has joined the group to work on the NPL/UCL microbubble trapping project

The Physics Department Annual Review 2011-12 has been published, and features Phil in the staff profile section

Members of the NPL/UCL microbubble trapping project will be at the Royal Society Summer Exhibition 2012 with a display titled POP! The sound of bubbles

Phil & Onofrio are visiting Juanjo Sáenz (Universidad Autonoma de Madrid), Fri 02 Mar

David Carberry (Bristol University) is visiting and giving the AMOPP seminar, Wed 22 Feb

AMOP Physics Open Day for prospective PhD students, Wednesday 08 Feb 12

Onofrio Marago (IPCF-CNR, Messina) is visiting the group as part of our Royal Society International Joint Project, 26-31 Jan 12

2011

Paper Optical trapping of porous silicon nanoparticles published in Nanotechnology 22 505704 (2011)

Nuffield Foundation / IoP Undergraduate Research Scheme 2012 now open for applications.  Contact Phil Jones if you are interested in applying for an award to work in the Optical Tweezers Group

Harrie Massey Lecture, 23 Nov 11: Coherent control of single molecules, complexes and nanoantennas by Prof Niek van Hulst (ICFO-Barcelona)

Onofrio Marago and Maria Grazia Donato (IPCF-CNR, Messina) are visiting the group as part of our Royal Society International Joint Project, 21-25 Nov 11

PhD studentship to work on optical and acoustic trapping of microbubbles available.  Contact Dr Phil Jones for details

Next Microbubble User Group (microBUG) meeting Wed 16 Nov 11 at Imperial College

Phil is visiting Onofrio Marago (IPCF-CNR, Messina) as part of our Royal Society International Joint Project, 07-11 Nov 11

CoMPLEX ITPL / MSc Nanotechnogy lecture on optical tweezers, Tue 11 Oct

Physics Colloquium Wed 19 Oct 11: Statistical Thermodynamics and the Breaking of Time Symmetry by Dr Gavin Crooks (Berkeley)

AMOP Physics seminar given by Phil Jones, Wed 05 October: Research in the UCL Optical Tweezers Group

Phil has won the Physics & Astronomy Departmental Teaching Prize for 2011

Kelly Thorneycroft has joined the group for her MSci project

Paper Fano-Doppler laser cooling of hybrid nanostructures published in ACS Nano 5 7354-7361 (2011)

Electromagnetic & Light Scattering (ELS) XIII conference in Taormina, Sicily, 26-30 Sep 2011.  Conference papers availabe in special issue of Atti della Accademia Peloritana dei Pericolanti

Susan is attending the Life beyond the PhD conference at Cumberland Lodge, 15-18 Aug 11

New movies of microparticle propulsion along tapered optical fibres on our YouTube channel

Jeremy Baumberg (Cambridge University) will be giving the CMMP/LCN seminar on NanoAssembly on the kilometre scale for NanoPhotonics, Wed 22 Jun 11

Phil has won the MAPS Faculty Teaching Award for 2011, shared with Prof Ted Johnson (Dept of Mathematics)

UCL Science Centre lecture by Phil Jones on 50 years of the laser, Fri 10 June

Ewa Karczeswka has joined the group with a Nuffield Foundation Undergraduate Research Bursary

Andrei Rode (ANU, Canberra) is visiting and giving the AMOPP seminar on Optical vortices: trapping of particles and material processing, 18 May 11

CoMPLEx MRes summer projects available.  See the course listings for details.

Optical Trapping Applications 2011 conference in Monterey, CA, 4-6 April 11

Onofrio Maragò (IPCF-CNR, Messina) is visiting the group, 7-11 March 11

Half-day meeting for UCL physicists and life scientists on Optical Techniques in Biological Physics, Thu 17 Feb 11

David McGloin (Dundee University) is visiting and giving the AMOPP/BioP seminar on Optical Manipulation of Droplets: Aerosols and Hydrosomes, 12 Jan 11

2010

Paola Borri (Cardiff University) is visiting and giving the AMOPP/BioP seminar on Novel Multiphoton Microscopy Techniques for Cell Imaging, 8 Dec 10

Paper 'Brownian Motion of Graphene'  published in ACS Nano 4 7515-7523 (2010).

Optical trapping article published in UCL Science for Schools magazine

Nuffield Undergraduate Research Scheme 2011 now open for applications.  Contact Phil Jones if you are interested in applying for an award to work in the Optical Tweezers Group

Onofrio Maragò (IPCF-CNR, Messina) is visiting the group, 8-12 November 10

Muhammad Abdul Khudus has joined the group for his MSc project

2010 Nobel Laureate Prof Andre Geim (Manchester University) will be giving the annual Bragg Lecture 27 Oct 10

CoMPLEx ITPL / Nanotechnology MSc lecture on optical tweezers, Tue 12 Oct

Next Microbubble User Group meeting on Friday 1 Oct 10 at Imperial College

Agata Pawlikowska has joined the group to work on the UCL/NPL 'Bubbles: sensors for the micro-world' project

NOIs project annual project meeting held in Physikzentrum Bad Honnef 24 Sep 10

Richard Berry (Oxford) is giving the CoMPLEX seminar on 'Single-molecule observations of turnover, co-operativity and mechanochemistry in a macromolecular complex' 27 July 10

Maria Grazia Donato (IPCF-CNR, Messina) is visiting the group, 12-16 July 10

Radhika Patel has joined the group with a Nuffield Foundation Undergraduate Research Bursary

MSci Projects in the Optical Tweezers Group for 2010-11 are now available.  See the course web site for full details.  Examples of previous projects can be found here and here.

'Bubbles: sensors for the micro-world' project start-up meeting Mon 17 May, Bushy House, Teddington

Project 'Bubbles: sensors for the micro-world' wins funding from the National Physical Laboratory Strategic Research Programme.

Onofrio Maragò (IPCF-CNR, Messina) is visiting the group, 2-5 March 10

Light-driven nanorotors paper featured in Topics in Particle and Dispersion Science

Project 'Ultra-high resolution spatio-temporal microscopy at UCL' wins funding from the Platform Technologies Initiative

AMOP Physics Open Day for prospective PhD students, Wednesday 3 February 2010

A PhD studentship is available to work on optical and acoustic trapping of microbubbles.  Contact Dr Phil Jones for details. (This position has now been filled).

Serge Lemay (U Twente / TU Delft) will give the LCN Seminar on Wed 13 Jan on 'Ion mesoscopics in nanofluidic devices'. Seminar postponed.

2009

CoMPLEX annual meeting The limits of perception: challenges for biological imaging, Fri 18 Dec

Optical Tweezers Group awarded a Royal Society International Joint Project grant with Onofrio Marago (IPCF-CNR)

'Optical nano-trapping' talk for the Imperial College Student Chapter of the OSA 26 Nov 09

Optical trapping article published in UCL journal Opticon1826

Nuffield Undergraduate Research Scheme 2010 now open for applications.  Contact Phil Jones if you are interested in applying for an award to work in the Optical Tweezers Group

Muddassar Rashid has joined the group for his MSc project

Optical Tweezers Group's research featured in a nanotechweb technology update, 22 Oct 09

CoMPLEx ITPL / MSc Nanotechnology lecture on optical tweezers Thu 15 Oct at 2pm in E17

Soliman Edris, Caroline Harfield and Shazia Khan have joined the group, October 09

Paper on 'Rotation Detection in Light-Driven Nanorotors' published in ACS Nano

Marios Sergides is joining the group for a PhD, 1 October 09

NOIs project start-up meeting, Thu 3 Sep 2009

Susan Skelton has joined the group for a PhD, 1 Sep 09

Paper 'Sagnac interferometer method for synthesis of fractional polarization vortices' published in Optics Letters

CoMPLEx PhD project on quantifying bacterial adhesion using optical tweezers and surface force balance available, starting 2009

Onofrio Maragò (IPCF-CNR, Messina) is visiting the group, 12-14 July 09

Trends in Optical Micromanipulation II to be held in Obergurgl, 11-16 Apr 2010

Paper on 'Focusing of high-order cylindrical vector beams' published in Journal of Optics A

A funded PhD studentship is available to work on trapping and binding with optical nanofibers (this postion has now been filled)

NOIs project receives funding from NanoSci-E+ and EPSRC

Alex Dunning has joined the group with a Nuffield Foundation Research Bursary

The official opening of the new CoMPLEx offices in the Physics Department will be on Thu 11 June 2009

A number of PHASM201 and PHAS3400 projects for 3rd and 4th year students are available for 2009-10.  See the course web site for details.  Examples of previous projects in the Optical Tweezers Group can be found here and here.

Onofrio Marago from the IPCF-CNR (Messina) is visiting the group 31 Mar - 2 Apr 09

Chris Abell (Cambridge University) will be giving the LCN seminar on Wed 11 Mar on 'Microdroplet microreactors'

Susan Perkin (UCL Chemistry) will be giving the AMOPP seminar on Wed 18 Mar on 'Films of water and ionic liquids, and the molecular basis of lubrication'

AMOP Physics Open Day for prospective PhD students, Wednesday 21 January 2009

Femtonewton force sensing with nanotubes featured in SPIE newsroom, 19 Jan 2009

Anna Las (ICR, Sutton) is visiting the group, 14 Jan 2009

Nuffield Undergraduate Research Scheme 2009 now open for applications.  Contact Phil Jones if you are interested in applying for an award to work in Optical Tweezers.

2008

Microbubble User Group meeting, Friday 12 December at Imperial College.

Pietro Cicuta (Cambridge University) will be giving the Chemistry Department seminar on 'Phase separation and mechanics in model membranes and simple biological cells', 10 December 2008

Femto Newton Force Sensing paper featured as a research highlight ('Trapped nanotubes') in Nature Photonics

Claudia Veigel (NIMR, Mill Hill) is giving the LCN seminar on 'The mechanics of myosin motor proteins', 5 November 2008

Optical Tweezers talk at the Physics Department Cumberland Lodge weekend 25 October 2008

Norman Loeckel, Duc Ninh, Nick Elias & Shaady Hussein are all joining the group for projects from October 2008

Prof Sumio Iijima (Meijo University, Japan) will give the annual Bragg Lecture on 'The 17-year-old carbon nanotube' 8 October 2008

CoMPLEx ITPL / Nanotechnology MSc lecture on Optical Tweezers, Thu 16 October 2008

Paper on Femto Newton force sensing with optically trapped nanotubes published in Nano Letters

Onofrio Marago from the IPCF-CNR (Messina) is visiting the group 27 June - 6 July 2008

Optical trapping of carbon nanotubes paper published in Physica E

Muddassar Rashid has joined the group with an Undergraduate Research Bursary from the Nuffield Foundation

Maqsood Ahmed has joined the group for his CoMPLEx MRes project.

Jochen Guck (Cambridge University) will be giving the LCN seminar on 'Biophotonics', 4 June 2008

PHAS4201 MSci Physics projects for 2008-09 available.  A list of all projects is available on the course web site.  Examples of previous projects in the Optical Tweezers Group can be found here and here.

CoMPLEx MRes summer project for 2008 on using optical tweezers to quantify bacterial adhesion available: details

Onofrio Marago and Pietro Gucciardi from IPCF-CNR are visiting the group January 23 - February 3, 2008

Hampstead Scientific Society talk on Optical Tweezers, January 17 2008.

2007

Congratulations to Sarah Skoff who completed her MSc project in the Optical Tweezers Group. She achieved a pass with distinction, and was awarded the Harrie Massey prize for the best MSc student.