'Optical spring' detects single molecules

Qiang Lin, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering, and optics PhD student Wei Jiang, in collaboration with researchers at the University of Victoria, have demonstrated for the first time how the so-called optical spring effect produced when light circulates in a miniaturized microresonator can be used to detect single molecules and particles. The new technology, described in a study published this month in Nature Communications, has many potential applications, including medical diagnostics, drug development, security screening, and environmental science. Read more here.

Images derived from http://www.nature.com/ncomms/2016/160727/ncomms12311/fig_tab/ncomms12311_F6.html, by Wenyan Yu, Wei C Jiang, Qiang Lin & Tao Lu.