SIGNATURE WORK
CONFERENCE & EXHIBITION 2023

Recently, much attention was paid to noninvasive micromotors and microrobots, and optically controlled micromotors are a new topic with great potential. This project combines the theory of optical tweezers with Chlamydomonas reinhardtii algae, aiming to find its potential as a biological micromotor. The project mainly consists of three parts: the theoretical study and computer simulation, calibration of single‐beam optical tweezers, and trapping of Chlamydomonas reinhardtii cells using an optical trapping system. In the first part, a detailed numerical analysis of trap stiffness was done using a java simulation program. A linear relationship was found between laser power and trap stiffness, and exponential relationships were found between laser power and beam overfill factor, refractive index as well as the numerical aperture. In the second part, a single‐beam optical trapping system was built and calibrated with polystyrene particles, which further tested the linear dependence between trap stiffness and laser power. In the third part, Chlamydomonas reinhardtii cells were successfully trapped by the single‐beam optical trapping system, confirming its great potential as a biological micromotor. At last, Bessel beam optical tweezers were built by adding an axicon to the single‐beam setup, which can be used for further studies.