Manipulating and Trapping Particles Using Near-Field Optics
Hosted By: Optical Trapping and Manipulation in Molecular and Cellular Biology Technical Group
08 November 2022 19:00 - 20:00
Eastern Time (US & Canada) (UTC -05:00)In this webinar hosted by the Optical Trapping and Manipulation in Molecular and Cellular Biology Technical Group, Síle Nic Chormaic will discuss some of the many applications of near-field optical traps that use optical waveguides or plasmonic nanostructures. Due to the very tight confinement of the light fields and the resulting very high field intensities that can be reached, trapping of sub-wavelength particles may be more readily achieved than for conventional optical tweezers using tightly focused light.
During the webinar, Nic Chormaic will introduce two specific devices, optical nanofibers and metamaterial-assisted plasmonic nanotweezers, and illustrate how they trap and control particles from inhomogeneous Janus particles, through gold and dielectric micro- and nanoparticles, to atoms. The two devices are suitable for different types of particle manipulation experiments, which will be discussed. Finally, some perspectives on future applications will be presented, including current limitations due to thermal and fabrication considerations.
Subject Matter Level: Intermediate - Assumes basic knowledge of the topic
What You Will Learn:
• Applications of near-field optical trapping
• Use of nanofibers and optical metamaterials in optical trapping of metal and dielectric nanoparticles
• Future directions in the development of optical tweezers
Who Should Attend:
Physicists, biologists, and engineers interested in:
• Optical trapping, optical forces and light-matter interactions
• Novel optical-trapping modalities and their potential applications in biology and physics
• Future developments in optical tweezers
About the Presenter: Sile Nic Chormaic from OIST Graduate University
After completing her Ph.D. on hydrogen atom interferometry at the Université Sorbonne Paris Nord, Síle Nic Chormaic held research positions in Austria, Australia, and Germany and faculty posts in Ireland at Cork Institute of Technology and University College Cork. Since 2012 she has been at Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University, Japan, where she leads the Light-Matter Interactions for Quantum Technologies Unit. Chormaic is recognized for her work on optical nanofibers and nanostructured devices with applications in cold atom studies, novel atom trapping schemes, microscopic and nanoscopic particle manipulation, complex optical mode propagation in nanofibers, and whispering gallery resonators for sensing and nonlinear optics. She has received several awards including an EU Science Bursary, an Austrian Science Foundation Lise Meitner Fellowship, and a Science Foundation Ireland Principal Investigator Award.
