216 / 2024-07-19 20:32:30

Optothermal nanotweezers and nanoparticle manipulation

optical tweezers, diffusiophoresis, thermo-osmosis, nanostructure fabrication, assembling

Optical tweezers that rely on laser irradiation to capture and manipulate nanoparticles have provided powerful tools for biological and biochemistry studies. However, the existence of optical diffraction-limit and the thermal damage caused by high laser power hinder the wider application of optical tweezers in the biological field. on the other hand, they lack a universal and biocompatible tool to manipulate nanoparticles of diverse sizes, charges, and materials. For the past decade, the emergence of optothermal tweezers has solved the above problems to a certain extent, while the auxiliary agents used in optothermal tweezers still limit its biocompatibility. Here, we report the Low-temperature optothermal nanotweezers(LONT) based on the sign transformation of the thermophoresis coefficient of colloidal particles in low-temperature environment. Additionally, through precise modulation of diffusiophoresis and thermo-osmotic flows in the boundary layer of an optothermal-responsive gold film, we also designed highly-adaptable optothermal nanotweezers (HAONT) capable of manipulating single nanoparticle as small as 10nm. These two approaches hold the potential to become valuable tools in fields such as synthetic biology, optofluidics, nanophotonics, and colloid science.