Development of micromechanisms for handling of biomaterials under laser light

Optical Tweezers are very useful systems to manipulate micro-scale objects in confined spaces. To prevent photodamage of laser light on biological objects, indirect manipulation concept became appealing among researchers in the recent years. However, manipulation of a target object in a stable manner by using conventional microspheres as end effectors of Optical Tweezers is an arduous task as laser light does not trap only microspheres but also attracts target object itself. Moreover, with the indirect manipulation approach, rotation of the target object around horizontal axes (to turn it up-side down) is not feasible which is an important feature for some bio-applications. By using direct laser writing, we propose two seperate mechanisms to above-mentioned two problems of indirect manipulation approach. First, a microcarrier is designed for stable manipulation purpose. Then, rotation mechanism is developed to extend rotational abilities of the Optical Tweezers. Both mechanisms are printed using Two Photon Photo-polymerization method. Furthermore, validation of proposed mechanisms are shown through optical manipulation experiments