Development and evaluation of multiple optical trapping of colloidal particles using computer generated structured light fields
Creators: name: Walsh, Jason
Publisher: name: RMIT University
Year: 2024

description: Colloidal particles are small particles ranging in size from nanometres to micrometres suspended in a fluid. Amongst many scientific and biological applications, they have been used to model crystallisation, vitrification, and particle interactions along with the use of colloidal model systems for the study of the fundamental nature of the fluid-crystal and fluid-glass phase transitions. It has been shown that colloidal particles can be trapped and manipulated using strongly-focused light beams known as optical tweezers, and this has paved the way for research into the area of micromanipulation using optical trapping. Holographic elements can replace multiple lenses in creating large numbers of optical tweezers and this is known as holographic optical trapping (HOT). A computer generated hologram can be designed to create large structured light fields, consisting of multiple foci, to enable trapping of multiple particles in arbitrary configurations. The overall aim of this project was to design, develop and test the suitability of a simple, inexpensive optical trapping arrangement suitable for multiple optical trapping. To achieve this, a theoretically-exact expression for the wavefront of a single point source was implemented in the coding scheme, allowing for the fast creation of multiple point sources suitable for holographic optical trapping experiments. Compensation for the spherical aberration present in the focusing optics was implemented into the coding scheme. Kodalith photographic film was chosen as the holographic recording medium for its high contrast and availability. The film has proven to be a successful medium, when used to record photographically-reduced images of high-quality printouts of the computed diffraction pattern, as it was able to successfully reproduce complex light fields. It is believed that this will be the first time that this film has been implemented for optical trapping purposes. The main limitations concerning the performance of the holograms recorded on Kodalith were the phase nonuniformities caused by unevenness in the film thickness which resulted in a failure to separately resolve light traps separated by less than about 5 (Mu)m. Index matching of the film between sheets of flat glass helped to compensate for these limitations. <br><br>Holographic optical trapping was successfully observed using a variety of different initial beam powers, holographic aperture settings and light field configurations. Trapping experiments on of two types of particles (PMMA and polystyrene) were successfully conducted, with as little as ~ 150 µW per trap being required for multiple polystyrene trapping. However, particles were weakly trapped and were easily dislodged at these powers, and a higher power per trap of around 1 mW is preferred. The use of a relatively low numerical aperture (NA) 50 mm SLR lens for focusing the holographic optical traps was successful, proving that optical trapping can be conducted without the use of high NA microscope-objective lenses commonly used in other set ups. <br><br>Holographic trapping of colloidal particles was successfully conducted at RMIT University for the first time proving the validity of the coding scheme, the recording method and the trapping arrangement.