In the optical trap, there are three forces operating.

What the researchers have focused on is something that was pretty much known all along: optical traps are only conservative to a first approximation.

They specialize in holographic optical trapping, a technique for creating and moving many optical traps at once.

For quantitative scientific measurements, most optical traps are operated in such a way that the dielectric particle rarely moves far from the trap center.

In this way, an optical trap can be compared to a simple spring, which follows Hooke's law.

When implemented with a spatial light modulator, such holographic optical traps also can move objects in three dimensions.

A second type of optical trap is called an optical dipole trap.

If I recall, you have an optical trap under your countertop.

To reach the lowest possible temperature, further cooling is performed using evaporative cooling in a magnetic or optical trap.

They used another infrared laser to create an optical trap for the bead.