Phase contrast imaging of blinking optical trap technique demonstrates contrasting behavior of raft pairs in an achiral background membrane. First, two optical plows made up of multiple time-shared light beams force two rafts together. The optical plows are switched off and rafts move away from each other. A second experimental run shows the same two rafts forced together by an optical plow which then remain bound together after the laser is shuttered. Scale bar is 2 μm.
Joia M. Miller, Chaitanya Joshi, Prerna Sharma, Arvind Baskaran, Aparna Baskaran, Gregory M. Grason, Michael F. Hagan, and Zvonimir Dogic
PNAS. 2019. 116:15792-15801 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1900615116