Construction of Optical Tweezers and Inverted Microscope*

PLAIDX is a research collaboration working across high school and undergraduate institutions to create opportunities for students to engage in original multi-disciplinary research. One of our research objectives is to construct cost-effective optical tweezers to study forces on non-damaged and damaged DNA. Part of achieving this goal is to build a visible light prototype that will be used to test concepts before developing an IR tweezing system (required for biomolecule research). This presentation will focus on how that objective was achieved. Building this prototype involved constructing and aligning a custom inverted microscope and optimizing a beam path using a HeNe laser to facilitate trapping molecules. This will lead to the project's next phase, which includes constructing a homemade current driver for a 1064 nm laser diode. This is happening in parallel with projects relating to biophysical applications.