Plasmonic Nanostructures as Accelerators for Nanoparticles: Optical Nanocannon
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Plasmonic Nanostructures as Accelerators for Nanoparticles: Optical Nanocannon Alexander S. Shalin & Sergey V. Sukhov
Received: 18 March 2012 / Accepted: 3 September 2012 # Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2012
Abstract We suggest a model of an optical structure that allows to accelerate nanoparticles to velocities on the order of tens of centimeters per second using low-intensity external optical fields. The nano-accelerator system employs metallic V-grooves which concentrate the electric field in the vicinity of their bottoms and creates large optical gradient forces for the nanoparticles in that groove. The conditions are found when this optical force tends to eject particles away from the groove. Keywords Plasmonic nanostructures . Optical manipulation . Nanofocusing . Field enhancement . Plasmonic nano-accelerator
Introduction Currently, interest is on the rise for the development of different ways for manipulation of nanometer- and subnanometer-sized objects. This interest is determined by the increasing demand for nanosystems having specific physical and chemical properties and is related to the increasing A. S. Shalin (*) : S. V. Sukhov Ulyanovsk Branch of Kotel’nikov Institute of Radio Engineering and Electronics of Russian Academy of Sciences, Goncharov Str. 48, 432011 Ulyanovsk, Russia e-mail: [email protected] A. S. Shalin Technological Research Institute, Ulyanovsk State University, Leo Tolstoy Str. 42, 432700 Ulyanovsk, Russia S. V. Sukhov CREOL, The College of Optics and Photonics, University of Central Florida, 4000 Central Florida Blvd., Orlando, FL 32816, USA
range of applicability of these systems in different areas of science and technology. For example, nanoparticles have widespread application in medicine for diagnostics and treatment of oncological diseases [1, 2]. Nanometer-sized carriers are also used for selective delivery of drugs and genetic materials to infected cells [3–6]. The controllable transport of nanoparticles becomes one of the conditions for the realization of the above methods. The viscosity of biological tissues usually prevents the diffusion mechanism for nanoparticle delivery [5–7] and requires much larger particle velocities and permeation abilities. Several works [8–11] suggest using so-called chemical nanoparticle bombs that comprise micro-capsules filled with nanoparticles of drugs. Polyelectrolyte shells with an embedded polymer net were developed [8] which can be destroyed by increasing the pH of the surrounding medium. The content of the shell is randomly blown apart with speeds considerably larger than that of diffusion [9]. Nevertheless, it should be noted that the rather large values of pH required for the realization of the discussed effect makes its application almost impossible in medical and biological areas. A somewhat different mechanism of inducing the capsule's explosion is based on the functionalization of the walls of the capsule by gold nanoparticles and further illumination with infrared laser light [10, 11]. Under selective irradiance of a
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