Tunable plasmonic tweezers based on nanocavity array structure for multi-site nanoscale particles trapping

Abstract

The ability of plasmonic optical tweezers based on metal nanostructure to stably trap and dynamically manipulate nanoscale objects at low laser power has been widely used in the fields of nanotechnology and life sciences. In particular, their plasmonic nanocavity structure can improve the local field intensity and trap depth by confining electromagnetic fields to subwavelength volumes. In this paper, the R6G dye molecules with 10−6 M were successfully trapped by using the Ag@Polydimethylsiloxane nanocavity array structure, and a R6G micro-ring was formed under the combined action of plasmonic optical force and thermophoresis. Subsequently, the theoretical investigation revealed that the trapping performance can be flexibly adjusted by changing the structural parameters of the conical nanocavity unit, and it can provide a stable potential well for polystyrene particles of RNP = 14 nm when the cavity depth is 140 nm. In addition, it is found that multiple trapping sites can be activated simultaneously in the laser irradiation area by investigating the trapping properties of the hexagonal conical nanocavity array structure. This multi-site stable trapping platform makes it possible to analyze multiple target particles contemporaneously.