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Monday, August 16, 2010

Flow-assisted Single-beam Optothermal Manipulation of Microparticles

Yangyang Liu and Andrew W. Poon

An optothermal tweezer was developed with a single-beam laser at 1550 nm for manipulation of colloidal microparticles. Strong absorption in water can thermally induce a localized flow, which exerts a Stokes’ drag on the particles that complements the gradient force. Long-range capturing of 6 μm polystyrene particles over ∼176 μm was observed with a tweezing power of ∼7 mW. Transportation and levitation, targeted deposition and selective levitation of particles were explored to experimentally demonstrate the versatility of the optothermal tweezer as a multipurpose particle manipulation tool.

DOI

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