Re-building an Optical Tweezers Setup Incorporating an AOM

Small dielectric particles in the Rayleigh size regime have the potential to be trapped by the properties of focused laser light. This is the principle that governs optical tweezers and is what I explored this past summer. Over the course of seven weeks, I fabricated an optical tweezers setup from an empty optical bench and successfully incorporated an acousto-optic modulator (AOM). An IR laser at 810 nm was used with a 40x objective and a piezoelectric stage. The results of this research were: consistent trapping of 1.06 μm latex beads and an AOM that produced a second, moveable beam within the objective and was able to pull beads into focus. Besides applications in quantum science, optical tweezers can also be applied to biological samples and the further development of this novel project will allow it to become an accessible and viable tool for Union physics or biology labs studying quantum science or organic trapping that was developed in-house.