  This preliminary study presents a simple modulation scheme to dynamically
create time-averaged optical potentials to trap colloidal particles using
acousto-optical modulation. The method provides access to control
experimentally relevant parameters of a tunable double-well potential. We show
experimental data successfully adjusting the trapping distance in the range
20-2000 nm and discuss situations arising when reconstructing time-averaged
optical potentials from trapped particle data. This is the first step towards
studying colloidal particles in dynamically modulated optical potentials to
explore the stochastic thermodynamics of mesoscopic systems and small-scale
thermo-mechanical machines.
