Influence of light pattern thickness on moving behaviors of dielectric microparticles manipulated by optoelectronic tweezers

Zhang, S., Elsayed, M., Chen, Y., Zhang, Y., Neale, S. L. and Wheeler, A. R. (2022) Influence of light pattern thickness on moving behaviors of dielectric microparticles manipulated by optoelectronic tweezers. Photonics Research, 10(2), pp. 550-556. (doi: 10.1364/PRJ.437528)

Abstract

Optoelectronic tweezer (OET) is a useful optical micromanipulation technology that has been demonstrated for various applications in electrical engineering and most notably cell selection for biomedical engineering. In this work, we studied the use of light patterns with different shapes and thicknesses to manipulate dielectric microparticles with OET. It was demonstrated that the maximum velocities of the microparticles increase to a peak and then gradually decrease as the light pattern’s thickness increases. Numerical simulations were run to clarify the underlying physical mechanisms, and it was found that the observed phenomenon is due to the co-influence of horizontal and vertical dielectrophoresis forces related to the light pattern’s thickness. Further experiments were run on light patterns with different shapes and objects with different sizes and structures. The experimental results indicate that the physical mechanism elucidated in this research is an important one that applies to different light pattern shapes and different objects, which is useful for enabling users to optimize OET settings for future micromanipulation applications.

• Item Type: Articles
• Status: Published
• Refereed: Yes
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: Zhang, Dr Shuailong and Neale, Professor Steven
• Authors: Zhang, S., Elsayed, M., Chen, Y., Zhang, Y., Neale, S. L., and Wheeler, A. R.
• College/School: College of Science and Engineering > School of Engineering; College of Science and Engineering > School of Engineering > Systems Power and Energy
• Journal Name: Photonics Research
• Publisher: Optical Society of America
• ISSN: 2327-9125
• ISSN (Online): 2327-9125
• Copyright Holders: Copyright © 2022 Chinese Laser Press
• First Published: First published in Photonics Research 10(2):550-556
• Publisher Policy: Reproduced in accordance with the publisher copyright policy