Floating AC-DEP (dielectrophoretic) manipulations of fluorescent nanoparticle at metal nanostructure for plasmonic applications

We propose the fluorescent nanoparticle manipulations at nano-metal structures with floating AC-DEP force for plasmonic applications. The electrode gap was optimized to induce enough DEP force around the nano-structure for manipulation of the nanoparticles. 10um wide gap of electrode was acquired to apply the floating AC-DEP force at various designed metal nano-structure such as nanowire, y-branch and vortex. The all shape of nano-metal structures are formed at the gap of microelectrode and not connected with microelectrode. The gold nano-structures in the gap of microelectrode were fabricated with e-beam lithography and lift-off process. Before the formation of metal nanostructure, micro electrodes for applying the electric field around the metal nano-structures were fabricated with photolithography and lift-off process. Cadmium selenide (CdSe/ZnS) QDs (0.8 nM, emission wavelength of 605 nm) with a 25 nm zinc sulfide capping layer and 100nm polystyrene nano bead (1 nM, emission wavelength of 610nm) were used as fluorescent nanoparticles. We applied the 8 V_pp, 3 MHz sine wave for the positive DEP force, and it resulted in 10⁸ V/m electric field and 10¹¹ V/m electric field gradient around gold nanowire with floating AC. The fluorescent nanoparticle's attachment at the nanowire is confirmed by the fluorescent optical analysis. The fluorescent nanoparticles are located successfully at designed metal nano-structures for plasmonic applications.