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Title

Optical 'snowblowing' of microparticles and cells in a microfluidic environment using airy and parabolic wavepackets

Author(s)

Baumgartl, Jorg;  Hannappel, Gregor M.;  Stevenson, David J.;  Mazilu, Michael;  Day, Daniel;  Gu, Min;  Dholakia, Kishan

Abstract

The year 2007 witnessed the experimental realization of extraordinary laser beams termed Airy and parabolic beams. Surprisingly, these beams are immune to diffraction and in addition exhibit transverse acceleration while propagating. This peculiar property of both Airy and parabolic beams facilitates the clearance of both microparticles and cells from a region in a sample chamber through particle/cell transport along curved trajectories. We term this concept "Optically mediated particle clearing" (OMPC) and, alternatively, "Optical redistribution" (OR) in the presence of a microfluidic environment, where particles and cells are propelled over micrometersized walls. Intuitively, Airy and parabolic beams act as a form of micrometer-sized "snowblower" attracting microparticles or cells at the bottom of a sample chamber to blow them in an arc to another region of the sample. In this work, we discuss the performance and limitations of OMPC and OR which are currently based on a single Airy beam optionally fed by a single parabolic beam. A possible strategy to massively enhance the performance of OMPC and OR is based on large arrays of Airy beams. We demonstrate the first experimental realization of such arrays.

Publication type

Conference paper

Research centre

Swinburne University of Technology. Faculty of Engineering and Industrial Sciences. Centre for Micro-Photonics

Source

Proceedings of the SPIE Optical Trapping and Optical Micromanipulation VI Conference, San Diego, California, United States, 02-06 August 2009 / K. Dholakia and G. C. Spalding (eds.), Vol. 7400

Publication year

2009

Keyword(s)

Airy beams;  Cells;  Colloids;  Microfluidics;  Optical guiding;  Optical trapping;  Parabolic beams;  Particle clearing;  Spatial light modulator

Publisher

SPIE

ISSN

0277-786X

ISBN

9780819476906

Publisher URL

http://dx.doi.org/10.1117/12.826193

Copyright

Copyright © 2009 Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers. This paper was originally published in Proceedings of SPIE (vol. 7400), and is available from: http://dx.doi.org/10.1117/12.826193. The published version of the paper is reproduced here in accordance with the copyright policy of the publisher. One print or electronic copy may be made for personal use only. Systematic electronic or print reproduction and distribution, duplication of any material in this paper for a fee or for commercial purposes, or modification of the content of the paper are prohibited.

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