Fabrication of Isolated Nanoparticle Circuitry Via Lensless Optical Tweezing (“L. O. T. s”)

We propose a novel method for trapping a nanometer-scale particle into a stable structure useful for a variety of interesting electrical measurements. The particle to be trapped can be dielectric or metallic, magnetic or non-magnetic. Our methodology was developed, in part, to ensure the absence of extraneous nanoparticles in the region of the device under test; it also allows a possible feedback mechanism to indicate when a nanoparticle has been successfully trapped. In particular, we irradiate a substrate containing a tiny etch-pit hole. On the transmission side of the substrate, the diffracted or evanescent optical fields should contain large enough gradients to localize a nanoparticle to the region of the hole.