Improving optical trapping of a single upconverting nanoparticle by plasmonic structure

Abstract

Upconverting nanoparticles have been used as optical probes in a great variety of scenarios ranging from cells to animal model. A single upconverting nanoparticles can be remotely manipulated by laser in a contactless way. When assessing an optically trapped single nanoparticle, the luminescence intensity and the trapping stability is very limited. We proposed the plasmonic enhancement to improve the luminescence efficiency of a trapped upconverting nanoparticles. The optical trapping force was demonstrated to be improved simultaneously.