Category:Construction of Optical Tweezers and devices: Difference between revisions

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Introduction

This page contains all the devices I invented for optical tweezers (OT) and other optical-experimental setups. All the devices were made in very low budget and in short amount of time. Most of the devices are available commercially in one form or other, but these devices are specifically created to full-fill the requirements of optical tweezers which is designed but not limited to DNA-overstretching and unzipping.

Easy way to align two laser beams

In OT I use 1064nm IR laser for trapping, since it is invisible I align it with 633nm HeNe which helps me in number of ways: It let me align IR in farfield especially when i need to align the microscope and with HeNe it is easier to find the sample plane in eyepiece and camera. This post discusses the procedure-steps of alignment[1]

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-hoO2OWB5riQ/UP9A4vopHhI/AAAAAAAACC8/mGBc7KlrABQ/s144/TEATA.png

Slow laser shutter

During experiments I need to peep through the eyepiece many times to adjust the sample on the tweezers. It is not safe if the IR laser is on and it is also not safe for the laser to turn on/off many times. So I need to cutoff the beam for safety without turning the laser off. AOM can also do that but I had to be careful with it for two reasons: The beam would still scatter at the back plane of the AOM and I still receive a week IR emission coming out of AOM even at 0 Volts. So for the safety I invented an air-freshener based laser shutter. Air-freshener dispensers mechanics is very durable because it is made to work every 30 minutes or so for months and years makes it right candidate for this purpose. To enhance the safety I put two sensors on the two ends of shutter which updates the real position of shutter through green and red LEDs. The post discusses the details of make[2]

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-nRCIVB0Lwf4/UP9FjCr1syI/AAAAAAAACDU/HVC2gmqvIPw/s144/DSC00347.JPG