Optical Propulsion and Manipulation of Micro-particles by Integrated Photonics

In this paper, we present the design and fabrication of directional couplers and multi-mode interferometers (MMI) for realizing micro-particle optical propulsion and manipulation. The evanescent field of waveguide directional couplers and MMI is able to drive a particle to flow and control the position of particle, according to the optical mode field distributed inside the devices. By launching a TM-polarized laser with a wavelength of 1550μm, the particles can be propelled with velocities as high as 5.3μm/s and 4.5μm/s for directional couplers and MMI, respectively, at the input power level of 50 mW.