Processing carbon nanotubes with holographic optical tweezers

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that holographic optical tweezers can trap and manipulate carbon nanotubes and their bundles, enabling high-speed, parallel processing for nanotube assembly and modification.

Contribution

First demonstration of trapping and manipulating carbon nanotubes with optical tweezers, including the use of holographic techniques for parallel nanotube processing.

Findings

Carbon nanotubes can be trapped and manipulated by optical tweezers.

Holographic optical tweezers enable hundreds of simultaneous traps.

Nanotubes can be transported, deposited, untangled, and ablated using visible light.

Abstract

We report the first demonstration that carbon nanotubes can be trapped and manipulated by optical tweezers. This observation is surprising because individual nanotubes are substantially smaller than the wavelength of light, and thus should not be amenable to optical trapping. Even so, nanotube bundles, and perhaps even individual nanotubes, can be transported at high speeds, deposited onto substrates, untangled, and selectively ablated, all with visible light. The use of holographic optical tweezers, capable of creating hundreds of independent traps simultaneously, suggests opportunities for highly parallel nanotube processing with light.