Bottom-Emitting VCSEL Arrays for Integrated Optical Particle Manipulation

The purely optical manipulation of particles has gained increasing interest in recent years. Especially the combination of optical manipulation with microfluidics offers new possibilities, such as the contamination-free handling of micrometer-sized particles in biology and medicine without any mechanical contact. VCSELs (vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers) are an excellent choice for optical trapping laser sources, offering the formation of two-dimensional arrays for parallel particle manipulation. Furthermore, they enable miniaturization by means of integration. In this report, we present a new concept for the realization of a so-called integrated optical trap. For this purpose, bottom-emitting AlGaAs–GaAs-based VCSEL arrays with a very small device pitch were fabricated and densely integrated with microfluidic channels.