Tailored Light Fields: A Novel Approach for Creating Complex Optical Traps (Aufnahme in die weltweite Liste der 30 besten Veröffentlichungen des Jahres 2011 aus den Bereichen Optik und Photonik)

This special issue of Optics & Photonics News (OPN) highlights the most exciting peer-reviewed optics research to have emerged over the past 12 months. Submissions were judged on the basis of the following criteria: The accomplishments described must have been published in a refereed journal in the year prior to publication in OPN. The work should be illustrated in a clear, concise manner that is readily accessible to the at-large optics community. The authors should describe the topical area as a whole and then discuss the importance of their work in that context.