Abstract

Applications of the liquid crystals (LCs) in the research field of the optical trapping and manipulation began to be explored from few years. LCs are usually composed of rod shaped molecules that flow like ordinary liquids, but exhibit long range orientational order similar to solid crystals. The average local orientation of the LC molecules is described by the director; an aligned LC is an uniaxial monocrystal with an optical axis along the director. Recent studies involving LCs in the optical tweezers field make evidence of a richness of observed phenomena and fascinating experimental capabilities [1-4].

© 2009 IEEE