Trapping and manipulation of individual nanoparticles in a planar Paul trap

TL;DR

This paper introduces a planar Paul trap capable of non-invasively trapping and manipulating individual charged nanoparticles in air or vacuum, addressing a key challenge in nanoscience visualization and control.

Contribution

The authors design and characterize a novel planar Paul trap optimized for trapping and manipulating single nanoparticles in air or vacuum environments.

Findings

Successful trapping of individual charged nanoparticles.

High trap confinement and in-plane integration achieved.

Dynamic reconfiguration of the trap demonstrated.

Abstract

Visualization and manipulation of nanoscale matter is one of the main and current challenges in nanosciences. To this aim, different techniques have been recently developed to non-invasively trap and manipulate nano-specimens, like nanoparticles or molecules. However, operating in air or vacuum still remains very challenging since most approaches are limited to a liquid environment. In this letter, we design and characterize a planar Paul trap optimized to trap and manipulate individual charged nanoparticles. This configuration offers competitive capabilities to manipulate nano-specimens in air or vacuum including in-plane integration, high trap confinement along with dynamical trap reconfiguration.