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Scalable trapping of single nanosized extracellular vesicles using plasmonics
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Researchers developed a plasmonic nanotweezers system capable of stably trapping individual nanosized extracellular vesicles, overcoming the diffraction limit of conventional optical tweezers and enabling characterization of heterogeneous nanoparticle populations relevant to disease diagnostics.
Heterogeneous nanoscale particles released by cells known as extracellular vesicles (EVs) are actively investigated for early disease detection1, monitoring2, and advanced therapeutics3. Due to their extremely small size, the stable trapping of nano-sized EVs using diffraction-limited optical tweezers4 has been met with challenges. Plasmon-enhanced optical trapping can confine light to the nanoscale to generate tight trapping potentials. Unfortunately, a long-standing challenge is that plasmonic tweezers have limited throughput and cannot provide rapid delivery and trapping of particles at plasmonic hotspots while precluding the intrinsic plasmon-induced photothermal heating effect at the same time. We report our original geometry-induced electrohydrodynamic tweezers (GET) that generate multiple electrohydrodynamic potentials for the parallelized transport and trapping of single EVs in parallel within seconds while enhancing the imaging of single trapped EVs. We show that the integration of nanoscale plasmonic cavities at the center of each GET trap results in the parallel placement of single EVs near plasmonic cavities enabling instantaneous plasmon-enhanced optical trapping upon laser illumination without any detrimental heating effect for the first time. 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.
More Papers Like This
Scalable trapping of single nanosized extracellular vesicles using plasmonics
AI summary Read the abstract
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.
Entry of Microparticles into Giant Lipid Vesicles by Optical Tweezers
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Researchers used optical tweezers to study how microparticles cross lipid membrane barriers in giant vesicles, a model for cell membranes. Understanding how particles at the microscale penetrate biological membranes is directly relevant to how microplastics may enter cells and tissues in living organisms.
Detection of microplastics and nanoplastics: Are Raman tweezers and enhanced Raman methods the solution for sub 20 μm particles?
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Raman tweezers — devices that use a laser beam to trap and analyze individual particles — combined with plasmonic enhancement techniques can detect and characterize nanoplastics and microplastics smaller than 20 µm, a size range that defeats most conventional filtration-based detection methods. Improving detection sensitivity for the smallest plastic particles is critical because nanoplastics are thought to be the most biologically active fraction, capable of crossing cell membranes and accumulating in tissues.
Fluorescence Imaging-Activated Microfluidic Particle Sorting Using Optical Tweezers
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This study developed a fluorescence imaging-activated microfluidic sorting system using optical tweezers to precisely isolate microscopic particles based on their fluorescent signal, enabling high-throughput separation of microplastics from complex environmental or biological samples.
Entry of microparticles into giant lipid vesicles by optical tweezers
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Using optical tweezers to apply precise forces, this study showed that microparticles can be pushed through lipid membrane vesicles — a model for cell membranes — when external mechanical force is applied and membrane tension is low. The findings provide mechanistic insight into how microplastics might physically cross cell membranes and enter cells, a key step in understanding potential cellular toxicity.
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