Scientists and engineers have available several methods to manipulate particles and their environments at the micron scale. Two such methods, optical trapping and magnetic trapping, offer the advantage that particles can be manipulated using external fields without direct access to the system. These two techniques can be combined to improve particle manipulation, but few particles have the required properties to respond to both optical and magnetic trapping. This project will develop oriented magnetic micro-particles with appropriate arrangements of material properties to give the particles superior properties for combined optical and magnetic manipulation.
This project presents an advanced manufacturing technique for producing a novel type of super-paramagnetic microparticle capable of simultaneous optical and magnetic trapping and manipulation. These particles are produced via the directed self-assembly of magnetic nano-particles within an optically nonlinear fluid media. The optically nonlinear media is then exposed to a shaped ultrafast laser source causing the formation of particles due to multiphoton absorption phase change. The magnetic properties of the new particles will far exceed those of current state of the art particles and will be influential and potentially transformative in biotechnology applications involving molecular spectroscopy and advanced manufacturing of smart structures such as adaptive liquid crystal-based imaging systems.
