Date: June 16, 2021 

Source: Institute of Nanophotonics

Assistant Prof. Xu Xiaohao of JNU's Institute of Nanophotonics and his collaborators Prof. Zhang Yao and Prof. Li Baojun have published their research on optical micromanipulation in the international academic journal Laser & Photonics Reviews (SCI impact factor 10.655) (Laser Photonics Rev. 2021, 15, 2000546). Inspired by the wagon-wheel effect on human vision, they proposed the concept of the optomechanical wagon-wheel effect and demonstrated the effect caused by the light power acting on nanoparticles, realizing the two-way screening of low refractive index medium nanoparticles. 

After a deep, systematic survey, the team found that nanoparticles' mechanical response to optical field may result in a phenomenon similar to the wagon-wheel effect, called the optomechanical wagon-wheel effect. When optical tweezers scan high frequency along a specific path and direction, the smaller nanoparticles will sense the distortion of the scanning direction of the optical tweezers, causing them to move against the scanning direction. The reverse motion results from the mismatch between the light response frequency and the scanning frequency of the nanoparticles, and its generation depends on the size of the nanoparticles.

Link to paper: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/lpor.202000546