Patent ID: 8139944

Claim:
A method for clearing particles from a channel, the method comprising: selecting a wavelength for a light beam based on a desired behavior of the particles when subjected to optical trapping forces exerted on the particles when irradiated with the light beam; spatially modulating the light beam to provide an intensity profile having regions of low and high intensity; collimating the light beam; transmitting the light beam through the channel to clear the particles along a path of the light beam; transmitting an optical data signal beam at the same wavelength as the light beam through the channel, wherein the optical data signal beam and the light beam are temporally modulated to be time division multiplexed; and providing a clocking signal imposed on the amplitude of the time division multiplexed light beam to establish time intervals, each of which contains one pulse of the light beam and one or more packets of data contained in the optical data signal beam.