Construction and Operation of a Light-driven Gold Nanorod Rotary Motor System.

ABSTRACT: The possibility to generate and measure rotation and torque at the nanoscale is of fundamental interest to the study and application of biological and artificial nanomotors and may provide new routes towards single cell analysis, studies of non-equilibrium thermodynamics, and mechanical actuation of nanoscale systems. A facile way to drive rotation is to use focused circularly polarized laser light in optical tweezers. Using this approach, metallic nanoparticles can be operated as highly efficient scattering-driven rotary motors spinning at unprecedented rotation frequencies in water. In this protocol, we outline the construction and operation of circularly-polarized optical tweezers for nanoparticle rotation and describe the instrumentation needed for recording the Brownian dynamics and R

SUBMITTER: Andren D 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6102027 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature