Miao Yu wins NSF grant for fiber optic tweezers

ISR-affiliated Associate Professor Miao Yu (ME) has won a three-year, $200K NSF grant for Dexterous Fiber Optic Tweezers for Bio-Particle Manipulation and Force Sensing.

The objective of this research project is to develop a dexterous dual fiber tweezers system with greatly enhanced flexibility, functionality, and efficiency. Through this research a fundamental understanding of such a system for manipulation and sensing of micro/nano sized particles will be achieved through a combination of thorough analytical, numerical, and experimental studies. The novel fiber optical tweezers equipped with surface plasmonic lens will significantly enhance the trapping efficiency compared with conventional fiber tweezers. Furthermore, by taking advantage of the advanced fiber optic modulation techniques, high speed and high resolution dynamical trapping position control will be enabled in the novel fiber optical tweezers. This effort is expected to not only enrich the fields of sensors, actuators, and biophotonics, but also pave the way for developing innovative tools for the study of biological systems, and shed further light on pathological mechanisms and disease diagnosis.

Published August 15, 2010