A novel all-dielectric optical micromixing device for lab-on-a-chip platforms

TL;DR

This paper introduces a new all-dielectric micromixing device leveraging angular momentum transfer from light to nanoparticles, enabling efficient, moving-part free mixing in microfluidic lab-on-a-chip systems.

Contribution

It presents a novel all-dielectric micromixing scheme based on light scattering and angular momentum transfer, advancing microfluidic mixing technology without moving parts.

Findings

Demonstrated angular momentum transfer from circularly polarized light to nanoparticles.

Designed a micromixing scheme utilizing scattering forces for nanoparticle manipulation.

Proposed applications in lab-on-a-chip platforms for chemical synthesis and analysis.

Abstract

The exciting properties of high index dielectric nanoparticles exhibiting both electric and magnetic Mie resonances are nowadays paving the way towards efficient light manipulation at the nanoscale. A commonly disregarded peculiarity of light scattering by Mie particles is their ability to extract angular momentum from the incident electromagnetic field. In this work, we have investigated numerically and analytically the angular momentum transfer from a circularly polarized plane wave to the transversely scattered field generated by a high index cube. Therefore, the tangential components of the Poynting vector enable predominant scattering forces in the near-field and induce orbital motion of absorbing nanoparticles in the vicinity of the scatterer. We then illustrate how these scattering forces can be utilized to realize a simple all-dielectric micromixing scheme for small dipolar spherical Au nanoparticles in an aqueous medium, accounting for the presence of Brownian and drag forces. The novel method we propose represents a step forward towards the practical implementation of efficient, all-dielectric, moving-part free, active mixing devices for a variety of microfluidics applications such as, e.g., lab-on-a-chip platforms for fast chemical synthesis and analysis, preparation of emulsions, or generation of chemical gradients.