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From Newtons third law, the principle of actio et reactio, we expect the forces between interacting particles to be equal and opposite. However, non-reciprocal forces can arise. Specifically, this has recently been shown theoretically in the interaction between dissimilar optically trapped particles mediated by an external field. As a result, despite the incident external field not having a transverse component of momentum, the particle pair experiences a force in a direction transverse to the light propagation direction. In this letter, we directly measure the net non-reciprocal force in electrodynamically interacting nanoparticle dimers illuminated by plane waves and confined to pseudo one-dimensional geometries. We show by electrodynamic theory and simulations that inter-particle interactions cause asymmetric scattering from heterodimers and therefore, the non-reciprocal forces are a consequence of momentum conservation. Finally, we demonstrate experimentally that non-reciprocal dynamics occur generally for illuminated asymmetric scatterers., Comment: 15 pages, 4 figures. Supporting information containing 24 pages and 12 figures

Particle tracking, which is an essential tool in many fields of scientific research, uses algorithms that retrieve the centroid of tracked particles with sub-pixel accuracy. However, images in which the particles occupy a small number of pixels on the detector, are in close proximity to other particles or suffer from background noise, show a systematic error in which the particle sub-pixel positions are biased towards the center of the pixel. This pixel locking effect greatly reduces particle tracking accuracy. In this report, we demonstrate the severity of these errors by tracking experimental (and simulated) imaging data of optically trapped silver nanoparticles and single fluorescent proteins. We show that errors in interparticle separation, angle and mean square displacement are significantly reduced by applying the corrective Single- pixel interior filling function (SPIFF) algorithm. Our work demonstrates the potential ubiquity of such errors and the general applicability of SPIFF correction to many experimental fields., Comment: 33 pages, 14 figures, including supporting information

We introduce an ultrasensitive detection technique for refractive index (RI) sensing based on an array of nanometer scale slot-antennas milled in a thin gold layer using a single lithographic step. Our experimental figures of merit (FOMs) of 140-210 in the telecom wavelength range approach the fundamental limit for standard propagating SPR sensors (~250).The underlying mechanism enabling this is the combination of a narrowband resonance of the slot-antennas with degeneracy breaking of Wood anomaly under slightly non-perpendicular illumination. In addition, we explore the sensitivity of the device to the depth of the analyte layer. This concept can be easily tuned to any desired wavelength and RI range by modifying the slot dimensions and the array spacing, thus rendering it highly useful for numerous sensing applications.

We demonstrate wide-angle, broadband and efficient reflection holography by utilizing coupled dipole-patch nano-antenna cells to impose an arbitrary phase profile on of the reflected light. High fidelity images were projected at angles of 450 and 200 with respect to the impinging light with efficiencies ranging between 40%-50% over an optical bandwidth exceeding 180nm. Excellent agreement with the theoretical predictions was found at a wide spectral range. The demonstration of such reflectarrays opens new avenues towards expanding the limits of large angle holography.