  The Photonic Force Microscope (PFM) is an opto-mechanical technique based on
an optical trap that can be assumed to probe forces in microscopic systems.
This technique has been used to measure forces in the range of pico- and
femto-Newton, assessing the mechanical properties of biomolecules as well as of
other microscopic systems. For a correct use of the PFM, the force field to
measure has to be invariable (homogeneous) on the scale of the Brownian motion
of the trapped probe. This condition implicates that the force field must be
conservative, excluding the possibility of a rotational component. However,
there are cases where these assumptions are not fulfilled Here, we show how to
improve the PFM technique in order to be able to deal with these cases. We
introduce the theory of this enhanced PFM and we propose a concrete analysis
workflow to reconstruct the force field from the experimental time-series of
the probe position. Furthermore, we experimentally verify some particularly
important cases, namely the case of a conservative or rotational force-field.
