Laser Trapping and Assembling of Nanoparticles at Solution Surface Studied by Reflection Micro-spectroscopy

Abstract

We present the laser power dependent behavior of optical trapping assembling of 208-nm polystyrene (PS) nanoparticles at the solution surface layer. The assembling dynamics is examined by reflection microspectroscopy as well as transmission and backscattering imaging. The transmission imaging shows that the laser irradiation at the solution surface layer forms a nanoparticle assembly, whose diameter becomes large with the increase in the laser power. The backscattering image of the assembly gives structural color, meaning that nanoparticles are periodically arranged over the whole assembly region. In reflection microspectroscopy, one band appears at long wavelength and is gradually shifted to the short wavelength with the irradiation. After the blue shift, the reflection band is located at the shorter wavelength under the laser irradiation at the higher power. We discuss these spectral changes from the viewpoint of the inter-particle distance determined by the dynamic balance between attractive optical force and repulsive electrostatic force among nanoparticles.