Article – Page 12 – Soft Matter Lab

OTGO published in JOSA B

Computational toolbox for optical tweezers in geometrical optics
Agnese Callegari, Mite Mijalkov, Burak Gököz & Giovanni Volpe
Journal of the Optical Society of America B 32(5), B11—B19 (2015)
DOI: 10.1364/JOSAB.32.000B11
arXiv: 1402.5439

Optical tweezers have found widespread application in many fields, from physics to biology. Here, we explain in detail how optical forces and torques can be described within the geometrical optics approximation, and we show that this approximation provides reliable results in agreement with experiments for particles whose characteristic dimensions are larger than the wavelength of the trapping light. Furthermore, we provide an object-oriented software package implemented in MATLAB for the calculation of optical forces and torques in the geometrical optics regime: Optical Tweezers in Geometrical Optics (OTGO). We provide all source codes for OTGO as well as documentation and code examples—e.g., standard optical tweezers, optical tweezers with elon- gated particles, the windmill effect, and Kramers transitions between two optical traps—necessary to enable users to effectively employ it in their research.

Longterm Influence of Fluid Inertia on Brownian Motion published in Phys. Rev. E

Longterm influence of fluid inertia on the diffusion of a Brownian particle
Giuseppe Pesce, Giorgio Volpe, Giovanni Volpe & Antonio Sasso
Physical Review E 90(4), 042309 (2014)
DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevE.90.042309
arXiv: 1402.6913

We experimentally measure the effects of fluid inertia on the diffusion of a Brownian particle at very long time scales. In previous experiments, the use of standard optical tweezers introduced a cutoff in the free diffusion of the particle, which limited the measurement of these effects to times comparable with the relaxation time of the fluid inertia, i.e., a few milliseconds. Here, by using blinking optical tweezers, we detect these inertial effects on time scales several orders longer up to a few seconds. The measured mean square displacement of a freely diffusing Brownian particle in a liquid shows a deviation from the Einstein-Smoluchowsky theory that diverges with time. These results are consistent with a generalized theory that takes into account not only the particle inertia but also the inertia of the surrounding fluid.

Speckle Optical Tweezers published in Opt. Express

Speckle optical tweezers: Micromanipulation with random light fields
Giorgio Volpe, Lisa Kurz, Agnese Callegari, Giovanni Volpe & Sylvain Gigan
Optics Express 22(15), 18159—18167 (2014)
DOI: 10.1364/OE.22.018159
arXiv: 1403.0364

Current optical manipulation techniques rely on carefully engineered setups and samples. Although similar conditions are routinely met in research laboratories, it is still a challenge to manipulate microparticles when the environment is not well controlled and known a priori, since optical imperfections and scattering limit the applicability of this technique to real-life situations, such as in biomedical or microfluidic applications. Nonetheless, scattering of coherent light by disordered structures gives rise to speckles, random diffraction patterns with well- defined statistical properties. Here, we experimentally demonstrate how speckle fields can become a versatile tool to efficiently perform fundamental optical manipulation tasks such as trapping, guiding and sorting. We anticipate that the simplicity of these “speckle optical tweezers” will greatly broaden the perspectives of optical manipulation for real-life applications.

Reply to Comment on Circular Microswimmers published in Phys. Rev. Lett.

Reply to comment on “Circular motion of asymmetric self-propelling particles”
Felix Kümmel, Borge ten Hagen, Raphael Wittkowski, Daisuke Takagi, Ivo Buttinoni, Ralf Eichhorn, Giovanni Volpe, Hartmut Löwen & Clemens Bechinger
Physical Review Letters 113(2), 029802 (2014)
DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.113.029802
arXiv: 1407.4016

Simulation of Active Brownian Motion published in Am. J. Phys.

Simulation of the active Brownian motion of a microswimmer
Giorgio Volpe, Sylvain Gigan & Giovanni Volpe
American Journal of Physics 82(7), 659—664 (2014)
DOI: 10.1119/1.4870398

Unlike passive Brownian particles, active Brownian particles, also known as microswimmers, propel themselves with directed motion and thus drive themselves out of equilibrium. Understanding their motion can provide insight into out-of-equilibrium phenomena associated with biological examples such as bacteria, as well as with artificial microswimmers. We discuss how to mathematically model their motion using a set of stochastic differential equations and how to numerically simulate it using the corresponding set of finite difference equations both in homogenous and complex environments. In particular, we show how active Brownian particles do not follow the Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution—a clear signature of their out-of-equilibrium nature—and how, unlike passive Brownian particles, microswimmers can be funneled, trapped, and sorted.

Brownian Motion in a Speckle Light Field published in Sci. Rep.

Brownian motion in a speckle light field: Tunable anomalous diffusion and selective optical manipulation
Giorgio Volpe, Giovanni Volpe & Sylvain Gigan
Scientific Reports 4, 3936 (2014)
DOI: 10.1038/srep03936
arXiv: 1304.1433

The motion of particles in random potentials occurs in several natural phenomena ranging from the mobility of organelles within a biological cell to the diffusion of stars within a galaxy. A Brownian particle moving in the random optical potential associated to a speckle pattern, i.e., a complex interference pattern generated by the scattering of coherent light by a random medium, provides an ideal model system to study such phenomena. Here, we derive a theory for the motion of a Brownian particle in a speckle field and, in particular, we identify its universal characteristic timescale. Based on this theoretical insight, we show how speckle light fields can be used to control the anomalous diffusion of a Brownian particle and to perform some basic optical manipulation tasks such as guiding and sorting. Our results might broaden the perspectives of optical manipulation for real-life applications.

Review on Optical Trapping of Nanostructures published in Nature Nanotech.

Optical trapping and manipulation of nanostructures
Onofrio M. Maragò, Philip H. Jones, Pietro Gucciardi, Giovanni Volpe & Andrea Ferrari
Nature Nanotechnology 8(11), 807—819 (2013)
DOI: 10.1038/nnano.2013.208

Optical trapping and manipulation of micrometre-sized particles was first reported in 1970. Since then, it has been successfully implemented in two size ranges: the subnanometre scale, where light–matter mechanical coupling enables cooling of atoms, ions and molecules, and the micrometre scale, where the momentum transfer resulting from light scattering allows manipulation of microscopic objects such as cells. But it has been difficult to apply these techniques to the intermediate — nanoscale — range that includes structures such as quantum dots, nanowires, nanotubes, graphene and two-dimensional crystals, all of crucial importance for nanomaterials-based applications. Recently, however, several new approaches have been developed and demonstrated for trapping plasmonic nanoparticles, semiconductor nanowires and carbon nanostructures. Here we review the state-of-the-art in optical trapping at the nanoscale, with an emphasis on some of the most promising advances, such as controlled manipulation and assembly of individual and multiple nanostructures, force measurement with femtonewton resolution, and biosensors.

Stratonovich-to-Itô Transition published in Nature Commun.

Stratonovich-to-Itô transition in noisy systems with multiplicative feedback
Giuseppe Pesce, Austin McDaniel, Scott Hottovy, Jan Wehr & Giovanni Volpe
Nature Communications 4, 2733 (2013)
DOI: 10.1038/ncomms3733
arXiv: 1206.6271

Intrinsically noisy mechanisms drive most physical, biological and economic phenomena. Frequently, the system’s state influences the driving noise intensity (multiplicative feedback). These phenomena are often modelled using stochastic differential equations, which can be interpreted according to various conventions (for example, Itô calculus and Stratonovich calculus), leading to qualitatively different solutions. Thus, a stochastic differential equation–convention pair must be determined from the available experimental data before being able to predict the system’s behaviour under new conditions. Here we experimentally demonstrate that the convention for a given system may vary with the operational conditions: we show that a noisy electric circuit shifts from obeying Stratonovich calculus to obeying Itô calculus. We track such a transition to the underlying dynamics of the system and, in particular, to the ratio between the driving noise correlation time and the feedback delay time. We discuss possible implications of our conclusions, supported by numerics, for biology and economics.

Sorting of Chiral Microswimmers published in Soft Matter

Sorting of chiral microswimmers (Cover article)
Mite Mijalkov & Giovanni Volpe
Soft Matter 9(28), 6376—6381 (2013)
DOI: 10.1039/C3SM27923E
arXiv: 1212.6504

Microscopic swimmers, e.g., chemotactic bacteria and cells, are capable of directed motion by exerting a force on their environment. For asymmetric microswimmers, e.g., bacteria, spermatozoa and many artificial active colloidal particles, a torque is also present leading to circular motion (in two dimensions) and to helicoidal motion (in three dimensions) with a well-defined chirality. Here, we demonstrate with numerical simulations in two dimensions how the chirality of circular motion couples to chiral features present in the microswimmer environment. Levogyre and dextrogyre microswimmers as small as 50 nm can be separated and selectively trapped in chiral flowers of ellipses. Patterned microchannels can be used as funnels to rectify the microswimmer motion, as sorters to separate microswimmers based on their linear and angular velocities, and as sieves to trap microswimmers with specific parameters. We also demonstrate that these results can be extended to helicoidal motion in three dimensions.

Circular Microswimmers published in Phys. Rev. Lett.

Circular motion of asymmetric self-propelling particles
Felix Kümmel, Borge ten Hagen, Raphael Wittkowski, Ivo Buttinoni, Giovanni Volpe, Hartmut Löwen & Clemens Bechinger
Physical Review Letters 110(19), 198302 (2013)
DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.110.198302
arXiv: 1302.5787

Micron-sized self-propelled (active) particles can be considered as model systems for characterizing more complex biological organisms like swimming bacteria or motile cells. We produce asymmetric microswimmers by soft lithography and study their circular motion on a substrate and near channel boundaries. Our experimental observations are in full agreement with a theory of Brownian dynamics for asymmetric self-propelled particles, which couples their translational and orientational motion.

Featured in “Synopsis: Round and Round in Circles”, Physics (May 9, 2013)