A microscopic steam engine implemented in an optical tweezer.

The introduction of improved steam engines at the end of the 18th century marked the start of the industrial revolution and the birth of classical thermodynamics. Currently, there is great interest in miniaturizing heat engines, but so far traditional heat engines operating with the expansion and compression of gas have not reached length scales shorter than one millimeter. Here, a micrometer-sized piston steam engine is implemented in an optical tweezer. The piston is a single colloidal microparticle that is driven by explosive vapourization of the surrounding liquid (cavitation bubbles) and by optical forces at a rate between a few tens of Hertz and one kilo-Hertz. The operation of the engine allows to exert impulsive forces with optical tweezers and induce streaming in the liquid, similar to the effect of transducers when driven at acoustic and ultrasound frequencies.