Using ultra-low input power densities, researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have demonstrated for the first time how low-power “optical nanotweezers” can be used to trap, manipulate, and probe nanoparticles, including fragile biological samples. “We already know that plasmonic nanoantennas enhance local fields by up to several orders of magnitude, and thus, previously showed that we can use these structures with a regular CW laser source to make very good optical tweezers,” explains, Kimani Toussaint, Jr., assistant professor of mechanical science and engineering at Illinois.
