Optically Induced Dielectrophoresis Based Automatic Assembly of Micro/Nano-Devices

Abstract

Optically induced dielectrophoresis (ODEP) provides a powerful method for parallel manipulation of micro/nano-scale particles with dynamic optical patterns. Until now, few ODEP-related researches has been done for automatic assembly of micro/nano-devices which have a profound effect on the application of nanomaterials. In this paper, an innovative ODEP platform is investigated for automatic and repeatable micro/nano-scale material assembly by integrating image acquisition module, image analysis module, light pattern generation module with micro step motion module. Image analysis module was successfully designed to automatically analyze the images obtained from the image acquisition module and recognize the shape and position of the manipulated objects in the images. The programed light pattern generation module allows for arbitrary and reconfigurable optical patterns based on the recognition results. A high resolution 3D motorized stage upon which the ODEP chip is fixed offers rapid and precise movement of the chip in micro scale. The automatic patterning of polystyrene beads and assembling of multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) into array had been accomplished by the ODEP platform. Experiment results proved that our platform is very effective and shows a promising potential for automatic assembly of micro/nano-devices in wafer-scale requiring massively parallel manipulation.

Keywords:

• Optically induced dielectrophoresis
• automatic assembly
• micro/nano-devices
• rapid and precise manipulation

Acknowledgments

This work obtained financial supports from the Natural Science Foundation of China (61107043), the State Key Laboratory of Robotics (2009Z02) and the CAS/SAFEA International Partnership Program for Creative Research Teams.