Optical Trapping of 12 nm Dielectric Spheres Using Double-Nanoholes in a Gold Film

• Published in: Nano letters Vol. 11; no. 9; pp. 3763 - 3767
• Main Authors: Pang, Yuanjie, Gordon, Reuven
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Washington, DC American Chemical Society 14-09-2011
• Subjects: Biology; Biology - methods; Condensed matter: electronic structure, electrical, magnetic, and optical properties; Dielectrics; Exact sciences and technology; Gold; Gold - chemistry; Metal Nanoparticles - chemistry; Microscopy, Electron, Scanning - methods; Nanospheres; Nanospheres - chemistry; Nanostructure; Optical properties and condensed-matter spectroscopy and other interactions of matter with particles and radiation; Optical properties of low-dimensional, mesoscopic, and nanoscale materials and structures; Optical Tweezers; Optics and Photonics; Particle Size; Physics; Polystyrene resins; Polystyrenes - chemistry; Refractive index; Refractometry; Silicon dioxide; Silicon Dioxide - chemistry; Trapping; nanoholes; Plasmonics; optical trapping; near-field optics; Gold; Spherical shape; Optical tweezers; Refractive index; Viruses; Gallium phosphide; Polystyrene; Silica; Thin films; Time dependence; Optical trapping; Optical properties; Nanosphere
• ISSN: 1530-6984; 1530-6992
• DOI: 10.1021/nl201807z

Optical tweezers have found many applications in biology, but for reasonable intensities, conventional traps are limited to particles >100 nm in size. We use a double-nanohole in a gold film to experimentally trap individual nanospheres, including 20 nm polystyrene spheres and 12 nm silica spheres, at a well-defined trapping point. We present statistical studies on the trapping time, showing an exponential dependence on the optical power. Trapping experiments are repeated for different particles and several nanoholes with different gap dimensions. Unusually, smaller particles can be more easily trapped than larger ones with the double-nanohole. The 12 nm silica sphere has a size and a refractive index comparable to the smallest virus particles and has a spherical shape which is the worst case scenario for trapping.