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Self-induced back-action optical trapping of dielectric nanoparticles

Nature Physics volume 5, pages 915–919 (2009)Cite this article

Abstract

Optical trapping has widely affected both the physical and life sciences. Past approaches to optical trapping of nanoscale objects required large optical intensities, often above their damage threshold. To achieve more than an order of magnitude reduction in the local intensity required for optical trapping, we present a self-induced back-action (SIBA) optical trap, where the trapped object has an active role in enhancing the restoring force. We demonstrate experimentally trapping of a single 50 nm polystyrene sphere using a SIBA optical trap on the basis of the transmission resonance of a nanoaperture in a metal film. SIBA optical trapping shows a striking departure from previous approaches, which we quantify by comprehensive calculations. The SIBA optical trap enables new opportunities for non-invasive immobilization of a single nanoscale object, such as a virus or a quantum dot.

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Figure 1: SIBA optical trapping using a nanoaperture in a metallic film.
Figure 2: Experimental trapping of 100- and 50-nm particles.
Figure 3: Numerical evaluation of SIBA trapping.
Figure 4: Trapping time evolution with the aperture diameter for 100 nm particles at 1.6 mW.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the Spanish Ministry of Sciences through Grants TEC2007-60186/MIC and CSD2007-046-NanoLight.es and Fundació CELLEX Barcelona. R.G., Y.P. and F.E. supported by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) of Canada Discovery Grant. R.G. was supported for this work through a visiting professorship from the Agència de Gestió d’Ajuts Universitaris i de Recerca (AGAUR) Generalitat de Catalunya.

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Author notes

  1. Mathieu L. Juan and Reuven Gordon: These authors contributed equally to this work

Authors and Affiliations

  1. ICFO-Institut de Ciences Fotoniques, Mediterranean Technology Park, 08860 Castelldefels, (Barcelona), Spain

    Mathieu L. Juan, Reuven Gordon & Romain Quidant

  2. Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Victoria, Victoria, British Columbia, V8W 3P6, Canada

    Reuven Gordon, Yuanjie Pang & Fatima Eftekhari

  3. ICREA-Institució Catalana de Recerca i Estudis Avançats, Barcelona, 08010, Spain

    Romain Quidant

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  1. Mathieu L. Juan
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  2. Reuven Gordon
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  3. Yuanjie Pang
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  4. Fatima Eftekhari
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  5. Romain Quidant
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Contributions

M.L.J., R.G. and R.Q. planned the project, designed the experiment and wrote the paper. M.L.J. did the trapping experiments on samples prepared by F.E. Y.P. and R.G. carried out the numerical simulations. All of the authors participated in the analysis of the results.

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Correspondence to Romain Quidant.

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Juan, M., Gordon, R., Pang, Y. et al. Self-induced back-action optical trapping of dielectric nanoparticles. Nature Phys 5, 915–919 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1038/nphys1422

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