Bringing optoelectronic tweezers into microfluidic platforms

Optical tweezers use lasers like fingers to grab and manipulate tiny objects, like atoms and cells, without damaging them, earning their inventor, Arthur Ashkin, the 2018 Nobel Prize in Physics. However, they require massive optical intensities, leading to a risk of photothermal damage.

Optoelectronic tweezers (OETs) build upon this technology and expand on its applications by using light as a switch to create virtual electrodes. By significantly reducing the optical power, OETs nearly eliminate the thermal damage caused by their optical counterparts.

Though OETs have been transformative for non-invasive micromanipulation, integrating them with microfluidics has been a challenge, limiting their biochemical and biomedical applications. Li et al. mapped out strategies for synergizing OETs with microfluidics.

“We wanted to provide a clear technological roadmap for the community, especially as the field is currently at a tipping point, shifting from manual lab devices toward highly automated, AI-driven platforms,” said author Shuailong Zhang.

The main challenge is the impedance mismatch between photoconductors and physiological fluids like blood or cell culture buffers: The high ionic strength of these biological solutions requires a significant light-induced conductivity change. Complex phototransistor technologies can help address this problem, but this solution is expensive and complex, and it limits high-throughput applications like antibody discovery, which requires sorting through thousands of cells.

“Overcoming these challenges — through the use of novel 2D semiconductor materials, advanced optoelectronic architectures, and dynamic surface passivation — will be revolutionary,” said Zhang.

The hope is to eventually integrate OETs with AI workflows to develop fully automated “cell factories in a box” where cell production workflows are fully automated, potentially democratizing access to personalized drugs.

“We are witnessing a profound paradigm shift,” Zhang said. “We are moving away from static laboratory devices and entering an era of intelligent, autonomous robotic systems that will redefine the frontiers of life science exploration.”

Source: “Optoelectronic tweezers meet microfluidics: A powerful approach for micromanipulation and biochemical analysis,” by Zonghao Li, Chunbo Yao, Gong Li, Henan Du, Hang Li, Wei-Hua Yu, Rongxin Fu, Kangfu Chen, Meiyi Zhou, Huikai Xie, Wei Xie, Hainan Xie, Lingling Shui, Mohammad Asif Zaman, Lambertus Hesselink, Steven L. Neale, and Shuailong Zhang, Applied Physics Reviews (2026). The article can be accessed at https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0320956 .

This paper is part of the Materials and Technologies for Bioimaging and Biosensing Collection, learn more here .