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Scalable trapping of single nanosized extracellular vesicles using plasmonics
Summary
Researchers developed a new trapping system called geometry-induced electrohydrodynamic tweezers (GET) that can quickly capture individual nanoscale extracellular vesicles — tiny particles released by cells that carry biological signals — using electric fields and light-based plasmonic traps, completing captures in seconds rather than tens of minutes. Beyond medical diagnostics, the technology shows promise for characterizing nanoplastics at the single-particle level.
Heterogeneous nanoscale extracellular vesicles (EVs) are of significant interest for disease detection, monitoring, and therapeutics. However, trapping these nano-sized EVs using optical tweezers has been challenging due to their small size. Plasmon-enhanced optical trapping offers a solution. Nevertheless, existing plasmonic tweezers have limited throughput and can take tens of minutes for trapping for low particle concentrations. Here, we present an innovative approach called geometry-induced electrohydrodynamic tweezers (GET) that overcomes these limitations. GET generates multiple electrohydrodynamic potentials, allowing parallel transport and trapping of single EVs within seconds. By integrating nanoscale plasmonic cavities at the center of each GET trap, single EVs can be placed near plasmonic cavities, enabling instant plasmon-enhanced optical trapping upon laser illumination without detrimental heating effects. These non-invasive scalable hybrid nanotweezers open new horizons for high-throughput tether-free plasmon-enhanced single EV trapping and spectroscopy. Other potential areas of impact include nanoplastics characterization, and scalable hybrid integration for quantum photonics.