Optical modulation and manipulation of neurons and cells with high efficiency through quantum dots and photonic crystals

Nanomaterials such as semiconductor quantum dots and nanostructures such as photonic crystals can interact with light in unique ways due to their nm's to sub-μm feature size. This enables versatile applications with high efficiencies. In this paper, we focus on biological applications, specifically, photostimulation and optical manipulation of cells. We report photostimulation and activation of neurons with very low optical intensity (0.0036 mW/mm2) through colloidal quantum dots. We also demonstrate efficient optical manipulation of cells and nanoparticles on a 2-D photonic crystal platform. Particles as small as 100 nm can be trapped with ∼16 μW/μm2 optical intensity.