We present the dynamics of microparticle launching and loading into optical traps in air. To address repeatable launching and loading of particles into the trap remained as a stubborn obstacle to realization of robust trapping systems, we investigated launching and trapping mechanism, analyzing particle trajectories during the three phases of particle loading: vibration and launching from a substrate, entrainment into the trap with dissipation, and steady state trapping. We identify characteristics that can be exploited to enable more repeatable launching, including in situ measurement of adhesion or natural frequency and the existence of stable subharmonic modes of particle vibration.
We simulate the dynamics of particle motion during launching and loading into optical traps to enable strategies for controlled loading of optical traps in vacuum. Particle dynamics during trap loading are simulated in air and compared to measured trajectories to validate particle behavior at measured launch velocities. The simulated dynamics are analyzed in both ballistic (vacuum) and diffusive (air) regimes to determine the forces required so that particles can be trapped stably. These results provide a foundation for developing control algorithms to reliably launch and load particles into optical traps in vacuum, and examples of controllers will be presented.
Normally occurring charges on small particles provide a means to control the motion of the particles. Using a
piezoelectric transducer to launch microparticles into a trap, we can vary particle-surface interactions to transfer charge
to the particle via contact electrification. This allows more detailed studies of contact electrification itself as well
generation of higher charge states for precision measurements of force or nonlinear dynamics using electric field
modulation. In practice, particles may be repeatedly landed on the substrate and relaunched during loading. This leads to
charge transfer so that the net charge on the polystyrene (PS) particle becomes sufficient to allow electrostatic forcing to
drive ballistic motion over a range of displacement two orders of magnitude greater than thermal fluctuations. An
increase in charge from 1000 to 3000 electrons is demonstrated and the induced motion of the trapped particle is
accurately described using simple classical mechanics in phase space.
KEYWORDS: Nanoparticles, Optical tweezers, Particles, Biosensing, Control systems, Laser therapeutics, Gold, Cancer, High power lasers, Particle systems
Gold nanoparticles (GNP) have wide applications ranging from nanoscale heating to cancer therapy and biological sensing. Optical trapping of GNPs as small as 18 nm has been successfully achieved with laser power as high as 855 mW, but such high powers can damage trapped particles (particularly biological systems) as well heat the fluid, thereby destabilizing the trap.
In this article, we show that counter propagating beams (CPB) can successfully trap GNP with laser powers reduced by a factor of 50 compared to that with a single beam. The trapping position of a GNP inside a counter-propagating trap can be easily modulated by either changing the relative power or position of the two beams. Furthermore, we find that under our conditions while a single-beam most stably traps a single particle, the counter-propagating beam can more easily trap multiple particles. This (CPB) trap is compatible with the feedback control system we recently demonstrated to increase the trapping lifetimes of nanoparticles by more than an order of magnitude. Thus, we believe that the future development of advanced trapping techniques combining counter-propagating traps together with control systems should significantly extend the capabilities of optical manipulation of nanoparticles for prototyping and testing 3D nanodevices and bio-sensing.
We demonstrate the simultaneous measurement of optical trap stiffness and quadrant-cell photodetector (QPD) calibration of optically trapped polystyrene particle in air. The analysis is based on the transient response of particles, confined to an optical trap, subject to a pulsed electrostatic field generated by parallel indium tin oxide (ITO) coated substrates. The resonant natural frequency and damping were directly estimated by fitting the analytical solution of the transient response of an underdamped harmonic oscillator to the measured particle displacement from its equilibrium position. Because, the particle size was estimated independently with video microscopy, this approach allowed us to measure the optical force without ignoring the effects of inertia and temperature changes from absorption.
Techniques to measure the trapping force in an optical tweezers without any prior assumptions about the trap
shape have been developed. The response of a trapped micro or nanoparticle to a step input is measured and
then used to calculate the trapping force experienced by the particle as a function of it's position in the trap. This
method will provide new insight into the trapping behavior of nanoparticles, which are more weakly bound than
microparticles and thereby explore larger regions of the trapping potential due to Brownian motion. Langevin
dynamics simulations are presented to model the system and are used to demonstrate this technique. Preliminary
experimental results are then presented to validate the simulations. Finally, the measured trapping forces, from
simulations and laboratory experiments, are integrated to recover the trapping potential.
There are several new tools for manipulating microscopic objects. Among them, optical tweezers (OT) has two distinguishing advantages. Firstly, OT can easily release an object without the need of a complicated detaching scheme. Secondly, it is anticipated to manipulate an object with six degrees of freedom. OT is realized by tightly focusing a laser beam on microscopic objects. Grabbing and releasing is easily done by turning a laser beam on and off. For doing a dexterous manipulation on an object, a complicated potential trap must be calculated and applied. We foresee that such calculation method will be developed in the near future. One of the candidates for implementing the calculated trap is scanning optical tweezers (SOT). SOT can be built by using actuators with a scanning frequency in the order of a hundred Hertz. We need fast scanners to stably trap an object. In this study, we present our design of such SOT. The SOT uses piezo-actuated tilt mirror and objective positioner to scan full three-dimensional workspace.
In order to realize the flexibility optical trapping offers as a nanoassembly tool, we need to develop natural and intuitive interfaces to assemble large quantities of nanocomponents quickly and cheaply. We propose a system to create such an interface that is scalable, inter-changeable and modular. Several prototypes are described, starting with simple interfaces that control a single trap in the optical tweezers instrument using a 3-dimensional Phantom haptic device. A networkbased approach is adopted early on, and a modular prototype is then described in detail. In such a design, individual modules developed on different platforms work independently and communicate with each other through a common language interface using the Neutral Messaging Language (NML) communication protocol. A natural user interface is implemented that can be used to create and manipulate traps interactively like in a CAD program. Modules such as image processing and automatic assembly are also added to help simplify routine assembly tasks. Drawing on lessons learned from the prototypes, a new system specification is formulated to better integrate the modules. Finally, conclusions are drawn on the overall viability and future of network-based systems for nanoassembly using optical tweezers.
System identification methods are presented for the estimation of the characteristic frequency of an optically trapped particle. These methods are more amenable to automated on-line measurements and are believed to be less prone to erroneous results compared to techniques based on thermal noise analysis. Optical tweezers have been shown to be an effective tool in measuring the complex interactions of micro-scale particles with piconewton resolution. However, the accuracy of the measurements depends heavily on knowledge of the trap stiffness and the viscous drag coefficient for the trapped particle. The most commonly referenced approach to measuring the trap stiffness is the power spectrum method, which provides the characteristic frequency for the trap based on the roll-off of the frequency response of a trapped particle excited by thermal fluctuations. However, the reliance on thermal fluctuations to excite the trapping dynamics results in a large degree of uncertainty in the estimated characteristic frequency. These issues are addressed by two parameter estimation methods which can be implemented on-line for fast trap characterization. The first is a frequency domain system identification approach which combines swept-sine frequency testing with a least-squares transfer function fitting algorithm. The second is a recursive least-squares parameter estimation scheme. The algorithms and results from simulation studies are discussed in detail.
The marriage of nanotechnology tools and concepts with biological systems is in its infancy, and the potential for revolutionary advances in areas such as Health Care can barely be imagined at this early stage. While biomedical applications will certainly be one of the most important application areas, nanobiological systems will also almost certainly be important in areas that are not traditionally biological, such as computing and sensing.
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