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Low-temperature optothermal nanotweezers

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Abstract

Optical tweezers that rely on laser irradiation to capture and manipulate nanoparticles have provided powerful tools for biological and biochemistry studies. However, the existence of optical diffraction-limit and the thermal damage caused by high laser power hinder the wider application of optical tweezers in the biological field. For the past decade, the emergence of optothermal tweezers has solved the above problems to a certain extent, while the auxiliary agents used in optothermal tweezers still limit their biocompatibility. Here, we report a kind of nanotweezers based on the sign transformation of the thermophoresis coefficient of colloidal particles in low-temperature environment. Using a self-made microfluidic refrigerator to reduce the ambient temperature to around 0 °C in the microfluidic cell, we can control a single nanoparticle at lower laser power without adding additional agent solute in the solution. This novel optical tweezering scheme has provided a new path for the manipulation of inorganic nanoparticles as well as biological particles.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 62275164, 61905145, and 62275168), National Key Research and Development Program of China (No. 2022YFA1200116), Guangdong Natural Science Foundation and Province Project (No. 2021A1515011916), and Shenzhen Science and Technology Planning Project (No. ZDSYS20210623092006020).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Radio Frequency Heterogeneous Integration; Key Laboratory of Optoelectronic Devices and Systems of Ministry of Education and Guangdong Province, College of Physics and Optoelectronics Engineering, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen, 518060, China

    Jianxing Zhou, Xiaoqi Dai, Yuhang Peng, Yili Zhong, Yonghong Shao, Junle Qu & Jiajie Chen

  2. Department of Biomedical Engineering, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, 999077, China

    Ho-Pui Ho

  3. Department of Bioengineering and COMSET, Clemson University, Clemson, SC, 29634, USA

    Bruce Zhi Gao

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  1. Jianxing Zhou
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  2. Xiaoqi Dai
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  3. Yuhang Peng
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  4. Yili Zhong
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  5. Ho-Pui Ho
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  6. Yonghong Shao
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  7. Bruce Zhi Gao
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  8. Junle Qu
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  9. Jiajie Chen
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Correspondence to Jiajie Chen.

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Zhou, J., Dai, X., Peng, Y. et al. Low-temperature optothermal nanotweezers. Nano Res. 16, 7710–7715 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-023-5659-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-023-5659-1

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