M. K. Garbos

Precise balancing of viscous and radiation forces on a particle in liquid-filled photonic bandgap fiber

A great challenge in microfluidics is the precise control of laser radiation forces acting on single particles or cells, while allowing monitoring of their optical and chemical properties. We show that, in the liquid-filled hollow core of a single-mode photonic crystal fiber, a micrometer-sized particle can be held stably against a fluidic counterflow using radiation pressure and can be moved to and fro (over tens of centimeters) by ramping the laser power up and down. Accurate studies of the microfluidic drag forces become possible, because the particle is trapped in the center of the single guided optical mode, resulting in highly reproducible radiation forces. The counterflowing liquid can be loaded with sequences of chemicals in precisely controlled concentrations and doses, making possible studies of single particles, vesicles, or cells.

Metrology of laser-guided particles in air-filled hollow-core photonic crystal fiber

Micrometer-sized particles are trapped in front of an air-filled hollow-core photonic crystal fiber using a novel dual-beam trap. A backward guided mode produces a divergent beam that diffracts out of the core, and simultaneously a focused laser beam launches a forward-propagating mode into the core. By changing the backward/forward power balance, a trapped particle can be selectively launched into the hollow core. Once inside, particles can be optically propelled along several meters of fiber with mobilities as high as 19 cm·s(-1) W(-1) (precisely measured using in-fiber Doppler velocimetry). The results are in excellent agreement with theory. The system allows determination of fiber loss as well as the mass density and refractive index of single particles.

Doppler velocimetry on microparticles trapped and propelled by laser light in liquid-filled photonic crystal fiber

Laser Doppler velocimetry is used to measure very accurately the velocity and position of a microparticle propelled and guided by laser light in liquid-filled photonic crystal fiber. Periodic variations in particle velocity are observed that correlate closely with modal beating between the two lowest order guided fiber modes.

Long-distance laser propulsion and deformation- monitoring of cells in optofluidic photonic crystal fiber

We introduce a unique method for laser-propelling individual cells over distances of 10s of cm through stationary liquid in a microfluidic channel. This is achieved by using liquid-filled hollow-core photonic crystal fiber (HC-PCF). HC-PCF provides low-loss light guidance in a well-defined single mode, resulting in highly uniform optical trapping and propulsive forces in the core which at the same time acts as a microfluidic channel. Cells are trapped laterally at the center of the core, typically several microns away from the glass interface, which eliminates adherence effects and external perturbations. During propagation, the velocity of the cells is conveniently monitored using a non-imaging Doppler velocimetry technique. Dynamic changes in velocity at constant optical powers up to 350 mW indicate stress-induced changes in the shape of the cells, which is confirmed by bright-field microscopy. Our results suggest that HC-PCF will be useful as a new tool for the study of single-cell biomechanics.

Expansion of arbitrary electromagnetic fields in terms of vector spherical wave functions

Since 1908, when Mie reported analytical expressions for the fields scattered by a spherical particle upon incidence of plane-waves, generalizing his analysis for the case of an arbitrary incident wave has been an open question because of the cancellation of the prefactor radial spherical Bessel function. This cancellation was obtained before by our own group for a highly focused beam centered in the objective. In this work, however, we show for the first time how these terms can be canceled out for any arbitrary incident field that satisfies Maxwells equations, and obtain analytical expressions for the beam shape coefficients. We show several examples on how to use our method to obtain analytical beam shape coefficients for: Bessel beams, general hollow waveguide modes and specific geometries such as cylindrical and rectangular. Our method uses the vector potential, which shows the interesting characteristic of being gauge invariant. These results are highly relevant for speeding up numerical calculation of light scattering applications such as the radiation forces acting on spherical particles placed in an arbitrary electromagnetic field, as in an optical tweezers system.

Optofluidic immobility of particles trapped in liquid-filled hollow-core photonic crystal fiber

We study the conditions under which a particle, laser-guided in a vertically-oriented hollow-core photonic crystal fiber filled with liquid, can be kept stationary against a microfluidic counter-flow. An immobility parameter-the fluid flow rate required to immobilize a particle against the radiation force produced by unit guided optical power-is introduced to quantify the conditions under which this occurs, including radiation, viscous and gravity forces. Measurements show that this parameter depends strongly on the ratio of particle radius a to core radius R, peaking at an intermediate value of a/R. The results follow fairly well the theoretical estimates of the optical (calculated approximately using a ray optics approach) and numerically simulated drag forces. We suggest that the system has potential applications in, e.g., measurement of the diameter, refractive index and density of particles, synthesis and biomedical research.

Particle guidance and photochemistry in hollow-core photonic crystal fibre

We discuss two recent applications of hollow-core photonic crystal fibre.

Controlled Particle Guidance in a Liquid-Filled Single-Mode Hollow-Core Photonic Crystal Fiber

We present controlled optical trapping and guidance of silica microparticles in the fundamental mode of D2O-filled hollow-core PCF, and show that a particle can be held stationary against an opposing fluid flow using optical propulsion.

Laser propulsion of microparticles in hollow-core photonic crystal fiber: A review of recent developments

We review our recent work on laser propulsion of microparticles in hollow-core photonic crystal fibers (HC-PCF).

Laser Propulsion and Optothermal Trapping of Particles in Air-filled Hollow-core Photonic Crystal Fiber

We review our work on laser-propelled microparticles in hollow-core photonic crystal fiber. A recently discovered optothermal trapping mechanism based on optically induced thermal creep flow is discussed.