TY - JOUR
T1 - Locally Structured On-Chip Optofluidic Hollow-Core Light Cages for Single Nanoparticle Tracking
AU - Kim, Jisoo
AU - Förster, Ronny
AU - Wieduwilt, Torsten
AU - Jang, Bumjoon
AU - Bürger, Johannes
AU - Gargiulo, Julian
AU - De S. Menezes, Leonardo
AU - Rossner, Christian
AU - Fery, Andreas
AU - Maier, Stefan A.
AU - Schmidt, Markus A.
N1 - Funding Information:
This work was supported by funding from Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (SCHM2655/11-1, SCHM2655/15-1, SCH2655/21-1, MA 4699/2-1, and Germanys Excellence Strategy – EXC 2051 – Project-ID 390713860), Lee-Lucas Chair in Physics (Imperial College London, UK) and Liebig fellowship (Fonds der Chemischen Industrie). Ruosong Wang is acknowledged for preparing the citrate-capped gold nanoparticles.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 The Authors. Published by American Chemical Society.
PY - 2022/10/28
Y1 - 2022/10/28
N2 - Nanoparticle tracking analysis (NTA) is a widely used methodology to investigate nanoscale systems at the single species level. Here, we introduce the locally structured on-chip optofluidic hollow-core light cage, as a novel platform for waveguide-assisted NTA. This hollow waveguide guides light by the antiresonant effect in a sparse array of dielectric strands and includes a local modification to realize aberration-free tracking of individual nano-objects, defining a novel on-chip solution with properties specifically tailored for NTA. The key features of our system are (i) well-controlled nano-object illumination through the waveguide mode, (ii) diffraction-limited and aberration-free imaging at the observation site, and (iii) a high level of integration, achieved by on-chip interfacing to fibers. The present study covers all aspects relevant for NTA including design, simulation, implementation via 3D nanoprinting, and optical characterization. The capabilities of the approach to precisely characterize practically relevant nanosystems have been demonstrated by measuring the solvency-induced collapse of a nanoparticle system which includes polymer brush-based shells that react to changes in the liquid environment. Our study unlocks the advantages of the light cage approach in the context of NTA, suggesting its application in various areas such as bioanalytics, life science, environmental science, or nanoscale material science in general.
AB - Nanoparticle tracking analysis (NTA) is a widely used methodology to investigate nanoscale systems at the single species level. Here, we introduce the locally structured on-chip optofluidic hollow-core light cage, as a novel platform for waveguide-assisted NTA. This hollow waveguide guides light by the antiresonant effect in a sparse array of dielectric strands and includes a local modification to realize aberration-free tracking of individual nano-objects, defining a novel on-chip solution with properties specifically tailored for NTA. The key features of our system are (i) well-controlled nano-object illumination through the waveguide mode, (ii) diffraction-limited and aberration-free imaging at the observation site, and (iii) a high level of integration, achieved by on-chip interfacing to fibers. The present study covers all aspects relevant for NTA including design, simulation, implementation via 3D nanoprinting, and optical characterization. The capabilities of the approach to precisely characterize practically relevant nanosystems have been demonstrated by measuring the solvency-induced collapse of a nanoparticle system which includes polymer brush-based shells that react to changes in the liquid environment. Our study unlocks the advantages of the light cage approach in the context of NTA, suggesting its application in various areas such as bioanalytics, life science, environmental science, or nanoscale material science in general.
KW - colloidal analytics
KW - integrated photonics
KW - nanoparticle tracking analysis
KW - optofluidics
KW - waveguiding
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85140617666&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1021/acssensors.2c00988
DO - 10.1021/acssensors.2c00988
M3 - Article
C2 - 36260351
AN - SCOPUS:85140617666
SN - 2379-3694
VL - 7
SP - 2951
EP - 2959
JO - ACS Sensors
JF - ACS Sensors
IS - 10
ER -