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Optics and photonics

Optics and photonics

‘Optical plucking’ manoeuvres single gold atoms into chemical reactions

25 Jul 2022
Single atom tractor beam
Plucky atoms: illustration of how light can be used to remove individual gold atoms from a surface. (Courtesy: Baumberg and collegues/Cavendish Laboratory/Department of Physics/University of Cambridge)
A new phenomenon whereby the energy from light confined to a nanocavity can “pluck” atoms from a

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