Localized surface plasmon assisted microfluidic mixing

Abstract

We present an optical microfluidic mixing approach via thermally induced convective flow sustained by localized surface plasmon (LSP) energy. The phonon energy associated with the nonradiative damping of LSP from a Au nanoparticle (NP) array under optical excitation creates a thermal gradient which initiates a convective fluidic flow. Experimental evidence and modeling results both show that LSP from the Au NPs is crucial in establishing a temperature gradient with sufficient magnitude to induce the convective flow with low input optical intensity.