Cell damage during femtosecond optical trapping

摘要

Microparticles including biological cells were trapped and manipulated using a continuous wave tweezer and a femtosecond laser tweezer. The difference of the optical trapping force between CW and femtosecond optical tweezers increased as the particle size decreased, possibly due to the self-focusing effect of the ultrashort pulses. Also, the white damage spots were generated near the focus during femtosecond optical trapping of biological cells even with extremely low average power. The instantaneous optical damage threshold was measured as a function of the trap depth as well. These results may help to optimize the optical trapping of biological cells using femtosecond lasers.