Resonant optical trapping in microfluidic-integrated hollow photonic crystal cavities

Abstract

Optical trapping of nanoparticles has many interesting applications in a variety of physical and biological studies. The ability of photonic crystal cavities to strongly confine light permits to overcome the diffraction limit that prevents the trapping of submicron sized particles with low powers in classical optical tweezers. The device studied in this project is integrated in an optofluidic chip. Distinction between 250 and 500 nm particles is shown.