infocus #54 June 2019 Life at the scrutiny of optical forces

Optical tweezers have been celebrated in 2018 with the Nobel Prize in Physics awarded to Arthur Ashkin. We trace here the history of this technique, which has proven essential for the discovery of several mechanisms of Life.

DOI: 10.22443/rms.inf.1.174

In the last 30 years a few techniques arose in biophysics labs to tackle this important problem. Among them, optical tweezers became more and more popular because of their high versatility. They can probe mechanics from the cellular level down to a single molecule, with a high temporal and spatial resolution. Because they are based on
light, they are hardly intrusive for the sample. Withan increasing number of companies providing plug-and-
play solutions, optical tweezers are becoming accessible to a wider community.

In this short review we give the historical background of optical tweezers, examine their physical principles and describe in a few examples how optical tweezers uncovered the mechanical world that takes place in our cells.

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