Atomic Force Microscopes (AFM) with 10 nm tip is employed to estimate work of adhesion at nano-scale. The AFM tip is pressed against the surface with forces around a few nano-Newtons and retracted back until it breaks from the surface. Thus estimating the work of adhesion due to this technique can be termed as “hard probing” of the surface. Whereas, we propose another configuration in which a spherical particle is trapped near the surface using a linearly polarized light and the particle attaches to the surface by work of adhesion. Here, by moving the surface in tangential direction, the particle is forced into a rolling motion. This motion can be used to estimate work of adhesion and this technique can be called “soft probing”. We used the soft probing configuration to estimate rolling work of adhesion of a birefringent 3 μm particle on a glass surface. Further, we have studied the effects of PolydimethylSiloxane (PDMS) which is a hydrophobic surface. This technique is used to probe the rolling work of adhesion of 500 nm nanodiamond bearing Nitrogen-vacancy centers which are birefringent due to the stress in the crystal. These nanodiamonds have a contact diameter as small as 50 nm because of their relatively high Young’s modulus. The rolling work of adhesion estimated using our soft probing configuration is about 1 mJ/m2, while using the AFM tips to estimate work of adhesion at nanoscale yields about 50 mJ/m2.
The cell membrane has fluctuations due to thermal and athermal sources. That causes the membrane to flicker. Conventionally, only the normal (perpendicular to the membrane) fluctuations are studied and then used to ascertain the membrane properties like the bending rigidity. It is here that we introduce a different concept, namely the slope fluctuations of the cell membrane which can be modelled as a gradient of the normal fluctuations. This can be studied using a new technique where a birefringent particle placed on the membrane turns in the out of plane sense, called the pitch sense. We introduce the pitch detection technique in optical tweezers relying upon asymmetric scattering from a birefringent particle under crossed polarizers. We then go on to use this pitch detection technique to ascertain the power spectral density of membrane slope fluctuations and find it to be (frequency)−1 while the normal fluctuations yields (frequency)−5/3. We also explore a different regime where the cell is applied with the drug Latrunculin-B which inhibits actin polymerization and find the effect on membrane fluctuations. We find that even as the normal fluctuations now become (frequency)−4/3, the slope fluctuations spectrum still remains (frequency)−1, with exactly the same coefficient as the case when the drug was not applied. Thus, this presents a convenient opportunity to study the membrane parameters like bending rigidity as a function of time after applying the drug. This would be the first time the membrane bending rigidity could be studied as a function of time upon the application of Lat-B without reverting to AFM.
Up-converting particles (UCP) absorb wavelengths in IR region and emit light in visible region by multiphoton absorption process. When optically trapped with 975 nm laser, these particles show active Hot Brownian Motion (HBM) due to the temperature difference created across the particle by the trapping laser. This is akin to an active particle optically confined in a tweezers with properly oriented motion. However, the activity vanishes when trapped with 1064 nm laser. We carefully maneuver the activity dependence of UCPs on laser wavelength to build a Stirling engine. A Stirling cycle consists of an isothermal expansion followed by isochoric cooling, isothermal compression and isochoric heating. Here, activity of the UCP in an optical trap is analogous to effective temperature which is controlled by the 975 nm laser. Whereas, the confinement of the trapped particle is similar to volume which can be altered by changing the trap stiffness of the 1064 nm laser trap. In this work, We first trap a UCP simultaneously with 1064 nm laser and 975 nm laser. Gradually decreasing 1064 nm laser power keeping 975 nm laser power constant decreases the trap stiffness resulting in less confinement of the UCP while keeping the activity constant. This process is considered as isothermal expansion. There can also be another process where 975 nm is increased and 1064 nm laser power is reduced leaving the total intensity constant. That would amount to isochoric process. We explore all these processes towards the Stirling cycle.
3D Pitch rotational motion has been generated in spherical particles using holographic optical tweezers by maneuvering the laser spots to control the rotational motion. However, since the spherical particles, required to minimise complications due to the drag forces, are perfectly isotropic, a controllable torque cannot be applied with it. It is here that we trap birefringent particles in two tweezers beams and then change the depth of one of the beam foci controllably to generate a proper pitch rotational torque wrench. We also detect the rotation with our newly developed pitch rotational motion detection technique which could not be done conventionally on isotropic spherical particles.
We show a new instability in sessile water droplets when a particle is trapped close to the edge interface of air and water by optical tweezers when the light beam heats up the glass substrate and generate thermophoretic forces that direct the particle outward from the tweezers trap. There is competition between the optical trapping and the thermophoretic forces which direct the particle away from the trap to generate this instability.
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