BUILDING AN OPTICAL TWEEZERS FOR LIFE SCIENCE RESEARCHES
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Date
2014-05-21
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Abstract
Optical Tweezers has evolved as a valuable tool to trap and manipulate particles. Since it was
introduced in 1986 by Ashkin and colleagues, Optical Tweezers has been used in many research
areas. Its applications are found on research in atomic physics, medical physics, chemistry, and
more notably in biophysics and cell biology. The simplest optical tweezers can be built from a
commercial optical microscope either upright or inverted. The tweezing force comes from the
radiation pressure of laser light which is sent to the back of the objective lens then is focused by
the lens to the particles in a cuvette or slides. The particles can be any things from atoms,
molecules, bacteria, viruses, blood cells to DNA. The optical tweezers are very useful in studying
biological samples because it can provide picoNewton and nanometer ranges of force hence one
can study the motor properties of the particles without damaging them. There are many
parameters can describe a reliable optical tweezers. These parameters depend on the laser
wavelength used and the size of the particles. In this article, the process to build an optical
tweezers and what optical components needed will be described. The optical tweezers described
has been used to trap two size-polystyrene beads with 830 nm laser light from a diode laser. This
optical tweezers will be prepared to trap and study chlorophylls of mango leaves in searching for
the new method in identifying its diversity. In the future, a portable and affordable optical
tweezers for life science researches will be built
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Optical Trap, Optical Tweezers, Diode Laser, science research