6533b836fe1ef96bd12a0a3b

RESEARCH PRODUCT

Optical tweezing using tunable optical lattices along a few-mode silicon waveguide

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International audience; Fourteen years ago, optical lattices and holographic tweezers were considered as a revolution, allowing for trapping andmanipulating multiple particles at the same time using laser light. Since then, near-field optical forces have arousedtremendous interest as they enable efficient trapping of a wide range of objects, from living cells to atoms, in integrateddevices. Yet, handling at will multiple objects using a guided light beam remains a challenging task for current on-chipoptical trapping techniques. We demonstrate here on-chip optical trapping of dielectric microbeads and bacteria usingone-dimensional optical lattices created by near-field mode beating along a few-mode silicon nanophotonic waveguide.This approach allows not only for trapping a large number of particles in periodic trap arrays with various geometries, butalso for manipulating them via diverse transport and repositioning techniques. Near-field mode-beating optical latticesmay be readily implemented in lab-on-a-chip devices, addressing numerous scientific fields ranging from bio-analysis tonanoparticle processing.