Editor David McGLoin
Acceleration and Trapping of Particles by Radiation Pressure (1970)
A. Ashkin
Arthur Ashkin's work work on the radiation pressure of light, demonstrating the ability of light pressure to push microscopic particles and trap using a counter-propagating beam trap. Ashkin's insight was that the use of a laser on transparent dielectric particles eliminated any thermal forces that had tended to mask previous the relatively small optical forces. The experiments were mainly on particles immersed in water, but Ashkin also reported on accelerating water droplets in air.