System and method for holographic optical trap bonding

Abstract

A system and method for bonding and unbonding of small objects using small adhesive particles. The system and method includes the use of a plurality of optical tweezers to manipulate objects to be bonded and adhesive particles suspended in a fluid. The objects to be bonded (or unbonded) and the adhesive particles are positioned by lower power optical tweezers and then an intense bonding optical tweezer is activated to cause the adhesive to join the objects together (or used to unbond objects).

1 . A system comprising,
 a device providing a plurality of light beams;   a fluid medium;   a suspension of an object and a particle in the fluid medium; and   a control system to manipulate the object and the particle to achieve a bonded state therebetween.   
   
   
       2 . The system as defined in Claim I wherein the particle is selected from the group consisting of a plurality of adhesive particles, a particle to dissolve a bond, a chemically active particle, a thermally active particle, a biologically active particle, an optically active particle, a magnetically active particle and combinations thereof. 
   
   
       3 . The system as defined in  claim 1  wherein the particle includes at least one adhesive particle. 
   
   
       4 . The system as defined in  claim 1  further including a bonding light beam. 
   
   
       5 . The system as defined in  claim 4  wherein the bonding light beam comprises a bonding light tweezer. 
   
   
       6 . The system as defined in  claim 1  wherein the plurality of light beams comprise a controlled optical field gradient. 
   
   
       7 . The system as defined in  claim 1  wherein the control system comprises a plurality of optical tweezers. 
   
   
       8 . The system as defined in  claim 1  wherein the control system includes an intense light beam of controllable intensity. 
   
   
       9 . The system as defined in  claim 1  wherein the fluid medium is selected from the group consisting of a gel, a liquid and a gas. 
   
   
       10 . The system as defined in  claim 3  wherein the at least one adhesive particle comprises a material having properties selected from the group consisting of thermal sensitivity, chemical sensitivity and biological sensitivity to a bonding light beam, and a shape enabling manipulation to allow bonding together of at least two objects. 
   
   
       11 . The system as defined in  claim 10  wherein the at least two objects and the at least one adhesive particle comprise nanoparticles of smallest dimension less than about 1000 nm. 
   
   
       12 . The system as defined in  claim 4  wherein the bonding light beam has an adjustable power level associated with the energy level needed for at least one of performing the bonding step and controlling rate of flux to a bonding site using at least one adhesive particle. 
   
   
       13 . The system as defined in  claim 3  wherein the at least one adhesive particle has properties such that it interacts only weakly with the light beams used for manipulation purposes. 
   
   
       14 . The system as defined in  claim 1  wherein the bonded state is selected from the group consisting of a conducting bond, a non-conducting bond and a semiconductor bond. 
   
   
       15 . The system as defined in  claim 1  further including a plurality of different adhesive particles to interact with the object. 
   
   
       16 . The method as defined in  claim 15  wherein the plurality of different adhesive particles are selected from the group consisting of adhesive particles, etchant particles, chemically reactive particles, optically active particles, electrically active particles and particles to dissolve a bond to the object.