Abstract

We demonstrate, what is to the best of our knowledge, a new method for studying the motion of a particle trapped by optical tweezers; in this method the trapping beam itself is used as a confocal probe. By studying the response of the particle to periodic motion of the tweezers, we obtain information about the medium viscosity, particle properties, and trap stiffness. We develop the mathematical model, demonstrate experimentally its validity for our system, and discuss advantages of using this method as a new form of scanning photonic force microscopy for applications in which a high spatial and temporal resolution of the medium viscosity is desired.

© 2003 Optical Society of America

Imaging microscopic viscosity with confocal scanning optical tweezers

Boaz A. Nemet, Yossef Shabtai, and Mark Cronin-Golomb
Opt. Lett. 27(4) 264-266 (2002)

Microscopic flow measurements with optically trapped microprobes

Boaz A. Nemet and Mark Cronin-Golomb
Opt. Lett. 27(15) 1357-1359 (2002)

Optical shield: measuring viscosity of turbid fluids using optical tweezers

M. P. Lee, A. Curran, G. M. Gibson, M. Tassieri, N. R. Heckenberg, and M. J. Padgett
Opt. Express 20(11) 12127-12132 (2012)

Toward optical-tweezers-based force microscopy for airborne microparticles

Rory M. Power, Daniel R. Burnham, and Jonathan P. Reid
Appl. Opt. 53(36) 8522-8534 (2014)

Blinking Optical Tweezers for microrheology measurements of weak elasticity complex fluids

Giuseppe Pesce, Giulia Rusciano, and Antonio Sasso
Opt. Express 18(3) 2116-2126 (2010)