Numerical and Experimental Study of Optoelectronic Trapping on Iron-Doped Lithium Niobate Substrate

Abstract

Optoelectronic tweezers (OET) are a promising technique for the realization of reconfigurable systems suitable to trap and manipulate microparticles. In particular, dielectrophoretic (DEP) forces produced by OET represent a valid alternative to micro-fabricated metal electrodes, as strong and spatially reconfigurable electrical fields can be induced in a photoconductive layer by means of light-driven phenomena. In this paper we report, and compare with the experimental data, the results obtained by analyzing the spatial configurations of the DEP-forces produced by a 532 nm laser beam, with Gaussian intensity distribution, impinging on a Fe-doped Lithium Niobate substrate. Furthermore, we also present a promising preliminary result for water-droplets trapping, which could open the way to the application of this technique to biological samples manipulation.

Keywords

• dielectrophoretic force
• optoelectronic tweezers
• photorefractive effect
• space-charge field
• numerical simulations
• optical trapping