We demonstrate single droplet formation in an ionic liquid/water mixture by optical tweezers. Upon focusing a near-infrared laser beam into the aqueous solution, a liquid droplet is formed at the focal spot. The droplet is stably trapped and increases in its size. The growth rate becomes faster at the higher laser power. The droplet has a core in its inside. The core-shell structure is confirmed by transmission and fluorescence imaging. We discuss the droplet formation dynamics from the viewpoints of optical force and local temperature elevation.
Optical tweezers enable the manipulation of micro-and nano dielectric particles through entrapment using a tightly
focused laser. Generally, optical trapping of sub-micron size particles requires high intensity light in the order of MW/cm2.
Here, we demonstrate a technique of stable optical trapping of submicron polymeric beads on nanostructured rare metal
surfaces (RMS) without the use of lasers. Fluorescent polymer beads with diameter d = 20 – 500 nm were successfully
trapped on the nanostructured RMS by low-intensity focused illumination of incoherent light at =370 m from a Hg lamp.
Light intensity was 5.5 W/cm2, corresponding to a reduced light intensity of 6 orders of magnitude. Upon switching off
illumination, trapped particles were released from the illuminated area, indicating that the trapping was optically driven
and reversible. The nanostructures were demonstrated to play a key role.
We demonstrate optical trapping of protein amyloid fibrils with the use of a tightly focused laser beam. Amyloid fibrils
are prepared by incubating a solution of hen egg-white lysozyme under the heating condition and characterized by atomic
force microscopy. Upon the focused laser irradiation, amyloid fibrils are attracted toward the laser focus and stably
trapped there. After switching off the laser, the trapped amyloids start diffusion to the surrounding solution. Thus, optical
force is effectively exerted on protein amyloid fibrils and useful to trap, assembly, and manipulate them.
We have succeeded in developing a new optical tweezers using nanostructured titanium crystals as an alternative to
plasmonic optical tweezers. We investigated the optical trapping of gel particles using this method. When a laser beam was
irradiated to the crystal, fluorescent gel particles were immediately trapped at the irradiation area. Furthermore,
fluorescence spectroscopy analysis showed that fluorescence intensity increased upon trapping. In this way, we succeeded
in developing a new optical tweezer with equivalent performance to plasmonic optical tweezers.
Laser-induced forward transfer (LIFT) is a direct-writing technique enabling deposition of a film. In addition, a single dot smaller than the laser wavelength can be deposited at small shot energy, and the case is called as laser-induced dot transfer (LIDT). In conventional LIDT experiments, multi-shots with step scanning have been used to form array structures, which are useful in plasmonics, pho-chemistry, light harvest, etc..
On the other hand, interference laser processing can achieve an arrayed process and generate a periodic structure in a single shot. In this presentation, the results of LIDT technique which uses a femtosecond laser interference pattern will be presented. As a result, an array of Au nanodots with 3.6 m period was successfully deposited, producing the following unit structures: a single dot, adjoining dots, and stacking dots.
This new technique produces high-purity, catalyst-free nanodots in array that do not require post-cleaning or alignment processes.
We have studied plasmonic optical tweezers (POT) for nanomaterials such as DNA and polymers. These nanomaterials would be efficiently trapped by a plasmon-enhanced optical force. However, plasmon excitation also leads to a photothermal effect. Such heat generation has frequently hindered POT. Recently, we have developed a novel optical trapping technique; Nano-Structured Semi-Conductor-Assisted (NASSCA) optical tweezers. In NASSCA optical tweezers, we used a metal-free black silicon with a nanoneedles structure on the surface. NASSCA optical tweezers presents a useful and powerful manipulation technique without heat generation.
We found that plasmonic optical trapping of soft nanomaterials were driven not only by an enhanced optical force but also by thermophoretic force. Since thermophoresis exerted on the nanomaterials strongly depends on their size and the surrounding medium, it is potentially applicable for a manipulation method of nanomaterials. In the present study, by taking advantage of the thermophoresis, we demonstrated thermophoresis-assisted optical trapping of pyrene-labeled hydrophilic polymer chains on plasmonic nanostructures.
A tightly focused laser beam exerts optical force on nanoparticles dispersed in an aqueous solution, leading to an optical trapping of them at the focal point. Recently, we have developed plasmonic optical tweezers for soft nano-matters such as DNA, thermoresponsive polymer chains, and dye aggregates. We observed the interested trapping behaviors of the soft nanomaterials on such liquid-solid interfaces. Our attention is paid to such optical trapping of them on interfaces because optical force strongly depends on the dielectric constant of the surrounding medium. In the present study, we demonstrated that optical trapping of quantum dots and octahedral gold nanocrystals at water-oil interface. Dark-field microscopy was a powerful tool to observe the trapping behaviors of the gold nanoparticles, while fluorescence microscopy was used for the observations of the quantum dots.
Poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) solution, which is a representative thermoresponsive polymer, exhibits a phase separation with a formation of polymer-rich microparticles due to dehydration and aggregation of the polymer chains above a lower critical solution temperature (LCST). However, little is known about the details of polymer concentration in the particle. We have developed optical tweezers combined with confocal Raman microspectroscopy to analyze a hydration structure in a single polymer rich particle. A focused near-infrared laser beam produced the microparticle at the focal point due to an optical force and a photothermal effect. In this study, we investigated that molecular weight dependence of the polymer concentration in the polymer-rich particle by means of Raman microspectroscopy.
We present the new structured materials, i.e. string-shaped Au nano-structures, formed by employing the optical vortex ablation processing on an Au thin film. We also address the filament formation of Au particles by deposition of optical vortex pulse. Such structured Au particles have the potential to pave the pathway towards advanced chemical reaction.
We present a novel manipulation technique for living cyanobacteria on a plasmonic substrate. Upon plasmon excitation,
a local temperature around the excitation area was elevated, leading to a microbubble formation in water. Subsequently,
living cyanobacteria were transported to the microbubble by a thermal convection. The cyanobacteria were permanently
fixed on the area even after switching off the plasmon excitation. We found that about a half of the fixed cyanobacteria
were alive. We succeeded in a micro-ring pattern of living cyanobacteria by the technique.
We demonstrated beam shaping to top-flat and square by phase-only Spatial Light Modulator (SLM) and spatial frequency filtering. Spatial phase distribution of a femtosecond laser beam was modulated by a phase grating pattern reflecting a transfer function for beam shaping. By filtering the higher spatial frequency component at Fourier plane in 4f system, the spatial amplitude distribution of the zero-order beam was shaped to top-flat and square. This result enables us to fabricate large area and uniform devices by using multi-shot processing.
Localized surface plasmons (LSPs) have been investigated for applications such as highly sensitive spectroscopies and
the enhancement of photochemical reactions. These applications are enabled by the enhancement effect of an incident
resonant electromagnetic field (EMF) at the surfaces of noble metallic nanostructures. In particular, the application of
LSP has recently attracted much attention for achieving the effective optical trapping of nanoparticles; this is called LSPbased
optical trapping (LSP-OT). LSP-OT possesses several advantages; (i) the EMF enhancement effect of LSP enables
the incident light intensity to be significantly reduced for stable LSP-OT, (ii) a nano-sized object can be trapped in a
nano-space whose volume is much smaller than that of conventional optical tweezers (diffraction limit), (iii) a large and
complicated optical set-up is not necessary, and (iv) this technique can potentially be combined with microfluidic
devices. That is, plasmonic substrates can work as “double-functional” devices where biomolecules trapped by LSPOT
can subsequently be analyzed on the basis of SERS or fluorescence enhancement. Thus, LSP-OT could enable a new
technique for manipulating not only nanoparticles, but also smaller molecules such as polymer chains, proteins and DNA. Here, we will present the demonstration of LSP-OT of fluorescent-labeled polystyrene nanospheres. We discuss multiple optical trapping in which a closely packed 2D hexagonal assembly appeared on a metallic nanostructure.
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