ON SHOTNOISE AND BROWNIAN MOTION LIMITS TO THE ACCURACY OF PARTICLE POSITIONING WITH OPTICAL TWEEZERS

This paper examines the fundamental resolution limit of particle positioning with optical tweezers due to the combined effects of Brownian motion and optical shotnoise. It is found that Brownian motion dominates at low signal frequencies, whilst shotnoise dominates at high frequencies, with the exact crossover frequency varying by many orders of magnitude depending on experimental parameters such as particle size and trapping beam power. These results are significant both for analysis of the bandwidth limits of particle monitoring with optical tweezers and for enhancements of optical tweezer systems based on non-classical states of light.