Optical forces and trapping potentials of a dual-waveguide trap based on multimode solid-core waveguides

Abstract

We propose a novel design of the dual-waveguide trap for trapping and Raman identification of microscopic particles and biological objects in a fluid. The device is based on two embedded Si3N4waveguides launching counterpropagating beams into the fluidic channel of a lab-on-a-chip. For waveguides with a square cross-section of 1 µm2, a 5 µm gap in between and for a 785 nm operation wavelength, we perform finite-difference time-domain simulations of the beam profiles and the trapping forces acting on polystyrene beads (diameter 0.2-1.4 µm). The forces reach values up to 16 pN/W for a bead diameter of 1.4 µm, indicating that the trap is very suitable to trap particles in a fluid. This is confirmed by the trapping potentials deduced from the force curves. The design of waveguides and chip is completely compatible with glass-based microfluidic technology, thus enabling mass production and widespead application, contrary to previous approaches.

Keywords

• integrated optics
• waveguides
• optical sensing
• raman spectroscopy
• optical tweezers