title: Optical forces arising from phase gradients.
abstract: We demonstrate both theoretically and experimentally that phase gradients in a light field can be used to create a new category of optical traps complementary to the more familiar intensity-gradient traps known as optical tweezers. We further show that the work done by phase-gradient forces is path dependent and briefly discuss some ramifications of this nonconservativity.
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics and Center for Soft Matter Research, New York University, New York, NY 10003, USA.
authors.forename: Yohai
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Roichman
authors.forename: Bo
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Sun
authors.forename: Yael
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Roichman
authors.forename: Jesse
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Amato-Grill
authors.forename: David G
authors.initials: DG
authors.lastname: Grier