title: Optical tweezers with tips grown at the end of fibers by photopolymerization.
abstract: We present a method to build an optical tip at the end of a single-mode optical fiber. The tip is grown by a self-writing process: photopolymerization by the light coming from the optical fiber. We developed a technique to produce a flat end surface on the tip. The good optical quality of the tip and the output laser beam was demonstrated by the fact that a counterpropagating optical trap could be constructed by using the tips with parameters comparable to regular fiber traps. Because of the small size of the tips, the tweezers require a much smaller space than regular fiber traps.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Biophysics, Biological Research Centre, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Temesvári krt 62, H-6726 Szeged, Hungary.
authors.forename: Sándor
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Valkai
authors.forename: László
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Oroszi
authors.forename: Pál
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Ormos
mesh_terms: D055100:Optical Fibers; D055620:Optical Phenomena; D052898:Optical Tweezers; D055668:Photochemical Processes; D011108:Polymers
chemical_list: D011108:Polymers