Investigation of inclined dual-fiber optical tweezers for 3D manipulation and force sensing

Optical tweezers provide a versatile tool in biological and physical researches. Optical tweezers based on optical fibers are more flexible and ready to be integrated when compared with those based on microscope objectives. In this paper, the three-dimensional (3D) trapping ability of an inclined dual-fiber optical tweezers is demonstrated. The trapping efficiency with respect to displacement is experimentally calibrated along two dimensions. The system is studied numerically using a modified ray-optics model. The spring constants obtained in the experiment are predicted by simulations. It is found both experimentally and numerically that there is a critical value for the fiber inclination angle to retain the 3D trapping ability. The inclined dual-fiber optical tweezers are demonstrated to be more robust to z-axis misalignment than the counter-propagating fiber optical tweezers, which is a special case of th former when the fiber inclination angle is 90 masculine. This inclined dual-fiber optical tweezers can serve as both a manipulator and a force sensor in integrated systems, such as microfluidic systems and lab-on-a-chip systems.