Engineered Brownian motion of nanomaterials

Abstract

The ability to trap and manipulate small objects in fluids affects fields as diverse as condensed-matter physics, biomedicine, and nanotechnology. Although many clever techniques have been devised to counter the randomizing effect of Brownian motion, new methods are still in great demand for handling different materials and functions. Here, we present three topics for the development of nanotechnological tools for manipulating single micro/nanoparticles in fluids, based on (1) electrostatics [1,2], (2) self-thermophoresis [3], and (3) x-ray radiolysis [4]. The single-particle manipulation has a great potential to develop nano-sized probes for exploring fundamental questions related to microscopic physical quantities - e.g. electric/magnetic fields, viscosity - in fluids. In this talk, we will discuss our experimental results the prospects of our research for potential biomedical applications. [1] Kim, J.T., Spindler, S., Sandoghdar, V., Nature Communications 5, 3380 (2014). [2] Tuna, Y., Kim, J.T., Liu, H.-W., Sandoghdar, V., ACS Nano 11, 7674 (2017) [3] Kim, J.T., Choudhury, U., Jeong, H.-H., Fischer, P., Advanced Materials 29, 1701024 (2017) [4] Xu, Z., Chen, M., Lee, H., Feng, S.-P., Park, J.Y., Lee, S., Kim, J.T.* (under review)