Figure 4: Two examples of vector disassembly.

(a) A scheme to disassemble a three-tweezer stabilized zigzag chain by unclicking the tweezers in three different manners. Full release, removing all the three tweezers at time 0 (red); half release, unclicking the end and middle tweezers at time 0 (cyan); and stagewise release, withdrawing the end tweezer at time 0 and middle tweezer at 160 s (blue). (b) The number of dissociated particles against time. Points are experimental data and straight lines linear fitting with colour coding the same as that of (a). The satisfactory linear fitting indicates that the particles detach from the chain end one by one at a statistically constant rate. The particle dissociation times are ∼12 and 23 s for the red and cyan lines, respectively. (c) A scheme to surgically cutoff a three-arm structure in three steps (S1 to S3). (d) Four snapshots of the disassembly process with yellow–red circles highlighting the operating optical tweezers. Scale bar, 3 μm.