Acoustic tweezers use ultrasound for contact-free manipulation of particles from millimeter to sub-micrometer scale. Particle trapping is usually associated with either radiation forces or acoustic streaming fields. Acoustic tweezers based on single-beam focused acoustic vortices have attracted considerable attention due to their selective trapping capability, but have proven difficult to use for three-dimensional (3D) trapping without a complex transducer array and significant constraints on the trapped particle properties. Here we demonstrate a 3D acoustic tweezer in fluids that uses a single transducer and combines the radiation force for trapping in two dimensions with the streaming force to provide levitation in the third dimension. The idea is demonstrated in both simulation and experiments operating at 500 kHz, and the achieved levitation force reaches three orders of magnitude larger than for previous 3D trapping. This hybrid acoustic tweezer that integrates acoustic streaming adds an additional twist to the approach and expands the range of particles that can be manipulated.
Optical levitation of dielectric particles in vacuum is a powerful technique for precision measurements, testing fundamental physics, and quantum information science. Conventional optical tweezers require bulky optical components for trapping and detection. Here, we design and fabricate an ultrathin dielectric metalens with a high numerical aperture of 0.88 at 1064 nm in vacuum. It consists of 500-nm-thick silicon nano-antennas, which are compatible with an ultrahigh vacuum. We demonstrate optical levitation of nanoparticles in vacuum with a single metalens. The trapping frequency can be tuned by changing the laser power and polarization. We also transfer a levitated nanoparticle between two separated optical tweezers. Optical levitation with an ultrathin metalens in vacuum provides opportunities for a wide range of applications including on-chip sensing. Such metalenses will also be useful for trapping ultracold atoms and molecules.
more » « less- Award ID(s):
- 2110591
- NSF-PAR ID:
- 10307585
- Publisher / Repository:
- Optical Society of America
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Optica
- Volume:
- 8
- Issue:
- 11
- ISSN:
- 2334-2536
- Format(s):
- Medium: X Size: Article No. 1359
- Size(s):
- Article No. 1359
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
More Like this
-
more » « less
Abstract -
Levitated optomechanics in vacuum has shown promise for fundamental tests of physics including quantum mechanics and gravity, for sensing weak forces or accelerations, and for precision measurements. While much research has focused on optical trapping of dielectric particles, other approaches, such as magnetic trapping of diamagnetic particles, have been gaining interest. Here we review geometries for both optical and magnetic trapping in vacuum, with an emphasis on the properties of traps for particles with a diameter of at least one micrometer.more » « less
-
more » « less
Since its advent in the 1970s, optical tweezers have been widely deployed as a preferred non-contact technique for manipulating microscale objects. On-chip integrated optical tweezers, which afford significant size, weight, and cost benefits, have been implemented, relying upon near-field evanescent waves. As a result, these tweezers are only capable of manipulation in near-surface regions and often demand high power since the evanescent interactions are relatively weak. We introduce on-chip optical tweezers based on freeform micro-optics, which comprise optical reflectors or refractive lenses integrated on waveguide end facets via two-photon polymerization. The freeform optical design offers unprecedented degrees of freedom to design optical fields with strong three-dimensional intensity gradients, useful for trapping and manipulating suspended particles in an integrated chip-scale platform. We demonstrate the design, fabrication, and measurement of both reflective and refractive micro-optical tweezers. The reflective tweezers feature a remarkably low trapping threshold power, and the refractive tweezers are particularly useful for multiparticle trapping and interparticle interaction analysis. Our integrated micro-optical tweezers uniquely combine a compact footprint, broadband operation, high trapping efficiency, and scalable integration with planar photonic circuits. This class of tweezers is promising for on-chip sensing, cell assembly, particle dynamics analysis, and ion trapping.
-
Optical tweezers have emerged as a powerful tool for the non-invasive trapping and manipulation of colloidal particles and biological cells1,2. However, the diffraction limit precludes the low-power trapping of nanometre-scale objects. Substantially increasing the laser power can provide enough trapping potential depth to trap nanoscale objects. Unfortunately, the substantial optical intensity required causes photo-toxicity and thermal stress in the trapped biological specimens3. Low-power near-field nano-optical tweezers comprising plasmonic nanoantennas and photonic crystal cavities have been explored for stable nanoscale object trapping4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13. However, the demonstrated approaches still require that the object is trapped at the high-light-intensity region. We report a new kind of optically controlled nanotweezers, called opto-thermo-electrohydrodynamic tweezers, that enable the trapping and dynamic manipulation of nanometre-scale objects at locations that are several micrometres away from the high-intensity laser focus. At the trapping locations, the nanoscale objects experience both negligible photothermal heating and light intensity. Opto-thermo-electrohydrodynamic tweezers employ a finite array of plasmonic nanoholes illuminated with light and an applied a.c. electric field to create the spatially varying electrohydrodynamic potential that can rapidly trap sub-10 nm biomolecules at femtomolar concentrations on demand. This non-invasive optical nanotweezing approach is expected to open new opportunities in nanoscience and life science by offering an unprecedented level of control of nano-sized objects, including photo-sensitive biological molecules.more » « less
