Towards biological applications of nanophotonic tweezers

Abstract

Optical trapping (synonymous with optical tweezers) has become a core biophysical technique widely used for interrogating fundamental biological processes on size scales ranging from the single-molecule to the cellular level. Recent advances in nanotechnology have led to the development of 'nanophotonic tweezers,' an exciting new class of 'on-chip' optical traps. Here, we describe how nanophotonic tweezers are making optical trap technology more broadly accessible and bringing unique biosensing and manipulation capabilities to biological applications of optical trapping.

Keywords: Biosensing; Lab on a chip; Mechanical manipulation; Nanophotonic tweezers; Optical trapping; Single molecule biophysics; Transport.