Nanonewton optical force trap employing anti-reflection coated, high-refractive-index titania microspheres

Optical tweezers are exquisite position and force transducers and are widely used for high-resolution measurements in fields as varied as physics, biology and materials science1, 2, 3. Typically, small dielectric particles are trapped in a tightly focused laser and are often used as handles for sensitive force measurements. Improvement to the technique has largely focused on improving the instrument and shaping the light beam1, 4, and there has been little work exploring the benefit of customizing the trapped object5. Here, we describe how anti-reflection coated, high-refractive-index core–shell particles composed of titania enable single-beam optical trapping with an optical force greater than a nanonewton. The increased force range broadens the scope of feasible optical trapping experiments and will pave the way towards more efficient light-powered miniature machines, tools and applications.