Evidence for Resonance Optical Trapping of Individual Fluorophore-Labeled Antibodies Using Single Molecule Fluorescence Spectroscopy

We report single molecule fluorescence studies of the diffusion of individual multiple fluorophore-labeled antibodies in solution, which show that a trapping potential of about 3.6 k(B)T can be obtained at laser powers below 1 mW with resonant excitation. Individual antibodies can be trapped for up to 140 ms, and bound antibodies can also be used to trap a single virion for up to 1 s. Selective resonance trapping to sort and manipulate fluorophore-labeled biomolecules and complexes may be possible.