Hollow spheres as individual movable micromirrors in optical tweezers

Opt Express. 2005 Feb 7;13(3):968-76. doi: 10.1364/opex.13.000968.

Abstract

We introduce the use of hollow micron-sized spheres with a finite-thickness glass shell as individual micromirrors operating by total internal reflection (TIR) when illuminated off-axis. We also demonstrated that this kind of spheres can be optically trapped and manipulated in two dimensions using a Gaussian beam in a conventional optical tweezers setup, which allows the precise positioning of the micromirrors at specific locations within a sample cell. This mirrors constitutes a new micro-tool in the context of the so called lab-on-a-chip.