Abstract
Since their inception, optical tweezers have proven to be a useful tool for improving human understanding of the microscopic world with wide-ranging applications across science. In recent years, they have found many particularly appealing applications in the field of biomedical engineering which harnesses the knowledge and skills in engineering to tackle problems in biology and medicine. Notably, metallic nanostructures like gold nanoparticles have proven to be an excellent tool for OT-based micromanipulation due to their large polarizability and relatively low cytotoxicity. In this article, we review the progress made in the application of optically trapped gold nanomaterials to problems in bioengineering. After an introduction to the basic methods of optical trapping, we give an overview of potential applications to bioengineering specifically: nano/biomaterials, microfluidics, drug delivery, biosensing, biophotonics and imaging, and mechanobiology/single-molecule biophysics. We highlight the recent research progress, discuss challenges, and provide possible future directions in this field.
Highlights
Optical tweezers have seen a multitude of technological developments over the past decades that have improved the functionality and flexibility of the technology first created by Ashkin et al (1986)
Gao et al (2019) demonstrated that dynamic holographic optical tweezers are capable of manipulating single microparticles in a gold coated microfluidic sample cell with the precision and stability required for coherent Xray diffraction imaging
While bioavailability and unintended side effects can limit the use of gold nanoparticles (GNPs) for clinical applications, optical based targeted DDSs are unique in that light can be tuned to direct the movement of carriers and release the loaded drugs
Summary
Optical tweezers have seen a multitude of technological developments over the past decades that have improved the functionality and flexibility of the technology first created by Ashkin et al (1986) These systems have been instrumental in opening up new areas of biomedical research and allowing researchers new ways to manipulate and investigate a variety of interesting biological phenomena. Nanoparticles may be subject to a variety of other anomalous forces created by thermal, electrostatic and chemical interactions This has motivated several new methodologies to produce stronger optical confinement by exploiting novel trapping mechanisms, such as near-field forces, nanoapertures (Gordon, 2019), plasmonic fields (Ghosh and Ghosh, 2019), hydrodynamic flows (Butaiteet al., 2019), and others (Hansen et al, 2005; Hajizadeh and Reihani, 2010). We anticipate that this paper will help scientists and engineers direct new research efforts into emerging biomedical problems and yield insights into to how previous studies have applied the technology
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