Optical tweezers have been successfully used to trap a variety of particles and biological specimens for numerous applications. Particles which are reflective as well as absorbing could be trapped using beams such as optical vortex. Here we give the details of our efforts to trap fluorescent microparticles. We have set up an optical trap for these fluorescent microparticles using holographic optical tweezers; we observe that it is not possible to trap fluorescent microparticles with a Gaussian laser beam or a hollow beam. However, as the fluorescence of these particles gets degraded they could be trapped in custom-made holographic tweezers. Moreover, when a fluorescent particle is brought in the trap containing stably trapped non-fluorescent particle, the stably trapped non-fluorescent particle also escapes from the trap.
Flow of micro particles and fluids is important in many microscopic systems. Here we present details of our finding of a directional flow of micro particles due to a single beam optical trap. It was found that the directional flow depends upon the size of optical trap, the number density of particles in the solution and the time after the trap was created. We suggest controlling the motion of microscopic particles in a fluid by varying a simple parameter like beam size for microfluidics applications.
Optical tweezers use the radiation pressure to trap and manipulate the microscopic particles. Using various algorithms multiple traps are being formed which can trap a number of particles simultaneously. In contrast to multiple traps, many particles can be trapped at a single trap position. It is known that when two or more particles are trapped in a single trap they align themselves in axial direction and it appears as if only one particle is trapped. We present a study of the dependence of the optical trapping force on the number of particles in a single trap using equipartition method; the study was carried out for particles of different sizes. The trapping force was first found to increase then decrease with number of particles in trap for all particle sizes. We feel that our studies will be useful in applications of optical tweezers involving trapping of multiple particles in a single trap.
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