Dynamic cell and microparticle control via optoelectronic tweezers

Abstract—This paper reports on cell and microparticle ma-nipulation using optically induced dielectrophoresis. Our novel optoelectronic tweezers (OET) device enables optically controlled trapping, transportation, and sorting via dielectrophoretic forces. By integrating a spatial light modulator and using direct imag-ing, arbitrary dynamic manipulation patterns are obtained. Here, we demonstrate manipulation functions, including particle collec-tors, single-particle traps, individually addressable single-particle arrays, light-defined particle channels, and size-based particle sorting. OET-induced particle manipulation velocities are ana-lyzed as a function of the applied voltage, optical pattern linewidth, and single-particle trap dimensions. [2006-0210] Index Terms—Dielectrophoresis (DEP), optical tweezers, optically induced DEP, optoelectronic tweezers (OET). I