Research is pursued in two partly interdisciplinary fields of science: The first is concerned with the development of new and powerful laser-based spectroscopic techniques for sensitive and selective detection of various types of molecular species in gas phase (often of environmental or toxicological interest) under a variety of conditions, primarily for applications such as environmental monitoring, process control chemical analysis, and combustion diagnostics. Of special importance is the development of diode laser based and/or cavity enhanced absorption techniques with improved detection and selection capabilities, in particular IR and UV TDLAS (tunable diode laser absorption spectrometry) and NICE-OHMS (noise-immune cavity-enhanced optical heterodyne molecular spectrometry). The second field is mainly concerned with development of optical tweezers for non-intrusive manipulation of micrometer-sized biological objects (individual cells and bacteria) and for force measurements in biological systems. This field includes also investigations and modeling of the biophysical properties of individual macromolecules, primarily bacterial pili, exposed to strain and/or stress. Read More

PI: Ove Axner