Home › Cell Biology › Construction and Operation of a Light-driven Gold Nanorod Rotary Motor System
Cell Biology JoVE (Open Access) Citable · DOI

Construction and Operation of a Light-driven Gold Nanorod Rotary Motor System

DOI: 10.3791/57947-v
What you'll learn
  • ✓ Set up circularly-polarized optical tweezers to trap and rotate gold nanorods
  • ✓ Measure nanorod rotational dynamics using intensity autocorrelation analysis
  • ✓ Perform dark-field spectroscopy on optically trapped plasmonic nanoparticles
Protocol

Plasmonic gold nanorods can be trapped in liquids and rotated at kHz frequencies using circularly-polarized optical tweezers. Introducing tools for Brownian dynamics analysis and light scatteringspectroscopy leads to a powerful system for research and application in numerous fields of science.

Difficulty
advanced
Total time
~4–6 hours per sample (instrument setup, alignment, data acquisition)

Steps

1
Set up circularly-polarized optical tweezers system

Assemble and align the optical path to generate circularly-polarized light for trapping gold nanorods in liquid. Understand the principles of optical force generation on plasmonic particles.

▶ 00:48
2
Configure measurement instrumentation and detection

Install light-scattering detection optics, photon-counting hardware, and spectrometer for simultaneous intensity and spectral measurements of trapped nanorods.

▶ 03:05
3
Prepare sample and trap nanorod in solution

Load gold nanorod suspension into the optical trap chamber and secure stable optical trapping of a single nanoparticle for rotation at kHz frequencies.

▶ 04:46
4
Measure rotational dynamics and spectral response

Acquire intensity autocorrelation data to characterize rotational frequency and perform dark-field spectroscopy to record plasmon resonance shifts during nanorod rotation.

▶ 06:57
💬 Comments coming soon