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The book explores the instrumentation and applications of optical tweezers to study statistical physics in soft, bio and nanoscale systems. The first part gives a general introduction about optical tweezers and detailed description of a typical setup along with its calibrations. Then it describes studies of statistical properties in soft matter systems, namely, out-of-equilibrium microrheology in a worm-like micellar system, irreversibility to reversibility crossover in the non-equilibrium trajectories of an optically trapped bead, and tunable Brownian vortices at liquid-air interface. The mechanical manipulation of the nano-systems, i.e. optically driven nano-rotors and the trapping, as well as transportation of palladium decorated single-wall carbon nanotubes using optical tweezers have been discussed in the following chapters. The study of physical property of a bio-inspired system - the cell membrane deformability of human erythrocytes with increasing calcium ion concentration constitutes the last part of the book.

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Dr. Manas Khan is a PhD from the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India. His research interests constitute statistical physics of soft condensed matter systems ranging from dispersions of colloidal particles, gels to biophysical systems. The experimental methods he uses are mainly optical trapping and manipulation, microscopy and imaging.

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