title: Optimizing photophoresis and asymmetric force fields for grading of Brownian particles.
abstract: We discuss a scheme that incorporates restricted spatial input location, orthogonal sort, and movement direction features, with particle sorting achieved by using an asymmetric potential cycled on and off, while movement is accomplished by photophoresis. Careful investigation has uncovered the odds of sorting between certain pairs of particle sizes to be solely dependent on radii in each phase of the process. This means that the most effective overall sorting can be achieved by maximizing the number of phases. This optimized approach is demonstrated using numerical simulation to permit grading of a range of nanometer-scale particle sizes.
authors.affiliation: Laboratory for Optics, Acoustics, and Mechanics, Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering,Monash University, Clayton VIC 3800, Australia.
authors.forename: Adrian
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Neild
authors.forename: Tuck Wah
authors.initials: TW
authors.lastname: Ng
authors.forename: Timothy
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Woods