Optical Trapping in Air of an Individual Nanotube-Sphere Device

Gurpreet Singh, Andrew Slifka, Paul Rice, Damian Lauria, and Roop L. Mahajan

We demonstrated the optical manipulation of a polystyrene bead supported in air by an individual carbon nanotube. We have also utilized this technique to demonstrate the calibration of a nanotube-sphere force sensor in the ≈10-10 N range. A focused IR laser (at 1.064 µm, 100 mW power) was used to trap the bead. This simple device consisted of a tungsten probe with a long nanotube (length, ≥15 µm) attached to its tip, while the other end of the nanotube supported a polystyrene microsphere. Decreasing the nanotube length to 8 µm did not show any sphere motion in the trap.
DOI