Trapping particles using waveguide-coupled gold bowtie plasmonic tweezers

Abstract

We propose and demonstrate a trapping configuration integrating coupled waveguides and gold bowtie structures to form near-field plasmonic tweezers. Compared with excitation from the top, waves coupled through the waveguide can excite specific bowties on the waveguide and trap particles precisely. Thus this scheme is more efficient and compact, and will assist the circuit design on a chip. With lightning rod and gap effects, the gold bowtie structures can generate highly concentrated resonant fields and induce trapping forces as strong as 652 pN W⁻¹ on particles with diameters as small as 20 nm. This trapping capability is investigated numerically and verified experimentally with observations of the transport, trapping, and release of particles in the system.