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Resonator nanophotonic standing-wave array trap for single-molecule manipulation and measurement

Author

F. Ye
J.T. Inman
Y. Hong
P.M. Hall
M.D. Wang

Abstract

Nanophotonic tweezers represent emerging platforms with significant potential for parallel manipulation and measurements of single biological molecules on-chip. However, trapping force generation represents a substantial obstacle for their broader utility. Here, we present a resonator nanophotonic standing-wave array trap (resonator-nSWAT) that demonstrates significant force enhancement. This platform integrates a critically-coupled resonator design to the nSWAT and incorporates a novel trap reset scheme. The nSWAT can now perform standard single-molecule experiments, including stretching DNA molecules to measure their force-extension relations, unzipping DNA molecules, and disrupting and mapping protein-DNA interactions. These experiments have realized trapping forces on the order of 20 pN while demonstrating base-pair resolution with measurements performed on multiple molecules in parallel. Thus, the resonator-nSWAT platform now meets the benchmarks of a table-top precision optical trapping instrument in terms of force generation and resolution. This represents the first demonstration of a nanophotonic platform for such single-molecule experiments. © 2022, The Author(s).

Date Published

Journal

Nature Communications

Volume

13

Issue

1

URL

https://www.scopus.com/inward/record.uri?eid=2-s2.0-85122876896&doi=10.1038%2fs41467-021-27709-3&partnerID=40&md5=d868d30b2faf55b8fbb3d2db47c7a994

DOI

10.1038/s41467-021-27709-3

Research Area

Group (Lab)

Michelle Wang Group

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