Latest Optical tweezers Stories
Manipulating tiny objects like single cells or nanosized beads often requires relatively large, unwieldy equipment, but now a system that uses sound as a tiny tweezers can be small enough to place on a chip, according to Penn State engineers."Current methods for moving individual cells or tiny beads include such devices as optical tweezers, which require a lot of energy and could damage or even kill live cells," said Tony Jun Huang, assistant professor of engineering science and...
Scientists drew fittingly from Roman mythology when they named a unique class of miniscule particles after the god Janus, who is usually depicted as having two faces looking in opposite directions.For years, scientists have been fascinated by the tantalizing possibilities of these particles for their potential applications in electronic display devices, sensors and many other devices. However, realizing these applications requires precise control over the positions and orientation of the...
A new type of optical particle trap can be used to manipulate bacteria, viruses and other particles on a chip as part of an integrated optofluidic platform. The optical trap is the latest innovation from researchers at the Jack Baskin School of Engineering at the University of California, Santa Cruz, who are developing new sensor technology for biomedical analysis and other applications."Ultimately, it could have applications for rapid detection of bacteria and viruses in hospitals, for...
Researchers at New York University have created a method to precisely bind nano- and micrometer-sized particles together into larger-scale structures with useful materials properties. Their work, which appears in the latest issue of the journal Nature Materials, overcomes the problem of uncontrollable sticking, which had been a barrier to the successful creation of stable microscopic and macroscopic structures with a sophisticated architecture.The long-term goal of the NYU researchers is to...
Like tiny Jedi knights, tunable fluidic micro lenses can focus and direct light at will to count cells, evaluate molecules or create on-chip optical tweezers, according to a team of Penn State engineers. They may also provide imaging in medical devices, eliminating the necessity and discomfort of moving the tip of a probe.Conventional, fixed focal length lenses can focus light at only one distance. The entire lens must move to focus on an object or to change the direction of the light....
U.S. scientists say they've created tunable fluidic micro lenses that can focus light at will while remaining stationary and can be fabricated on a chip. The Pennsylvania State University research engineers said such fluidic lenses can be used for many applications, such as counting cells, evaluating molecules or creating on-chip optical tweezers. The lenses might also provide imaging in medical devices, eliminating the necessity of moving the tip of a probe, they added. The researchers, led...
Physicists at Brown University have developed a novel procedure to map a person's genome. They report in the journal Nanotechnology the first experiment to move a DNA chain through a nanopore using magnets. The approach is promising because it allows multiple segments of a DNA strand to be read simultaneously and accurately.Since the human genome was sequenced six years ago, the cost of producing a high-quality genome sequence has dropped precipitously. More recently, the National Institutes...
Researchers at Purdue University have developed a technique that uses a laser and holograms to precisely position numerous tiny particles within seconds, representing a potential new tool to analyze biological samples or create devices using nanoassembly.The technique, called rapid electrokinetic patterning, is a potential alternative to existing technologies because the patterns can be more quickly and easily changed, said mechanical engineering doctoral student Stuart J. Williams."It's...
Science fiction writers have long envisioned sailing a spacecraft by the optical force of the sun's light. But, the forces of sunlight are too weak to fill even the oversized sails that have been tried. Now a team led by researchers at the Yale School of Engineering & Applied Science has shown that the force of light indeed can be harnessed to drive machines "” when the process is scaled to nano-proportions.Their work opens the door to a new class of semiconductor devices that are...
By Vayshenker, I Li, X; Livigni, D J; Lehman, J H; Bermudez, J C; Molina, J C; Ruiz, Z E We describe the results of a comparison of reference standards between the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST- USA) and Centro Nacional De Metrologia (CENAM-Mexico). Open beam (free field) and optical-fiber-based measurements at wavelengths of 1302 nm and 1546 nm are reported. Both laboratories' reference standards were compared by means of a temperature-controlled optical trap...
