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Mr Ricardo Saiz (left) and Lars Neumann (right)
Mr Ricardo Saiz (left) and Lars Neumann (right)

ICFO’s optical tweezers in El PAIS

The newspaper El Pais features research on a new technique to detect molecule-scale torque carried out at ICFO

January 12, 2007
The newspaper El Pais has featured a research carried out by ICFO researchers, Giovanni Volpe and Prof. Dmitri Petrov, about a new technique to measure torque using statistical methods similar to what researchers use for linear force measurements. Compared to other measurements, this method achieves ten times higher torque sensitivity and it could be applied to proteins, DNA, or even synthetic nanomotors developed for futuristic devices.

To test their method, Petrov and Volpe trapped a 1-micron-wide polystyrene bead with a red laser beam and at the same time nudged it with a green laser. Only when the researchers calculated the correlation functions were they able to measure a miniscule torque of 4 x 10-21 newton-meters, which matched their predictions and was ten times smaller than the smallest torque measured before.
Mr Jordi Funollet (left) and Mrs Aïda Díaz (right)