Numerical modelling of optical trapping in hollow photonic crystal cavities

Photonic Crystal (PhC) devices owing to their strong confinement of electromagnetic energy are considered to be ideal candidates for on chip optical trapping of dielectric or biological particles in the nanometer range. This would miniaturize optical manipulation devices to a large extent and make them possible on low power integrated silicon platforms. The main challenge in this direction would be the understanding of the type of cavities that are more suitable to optical trapping applications given their unique geometric shapes and mode field overlaps. In this work, we study and present hollow PhC cavities and characterize them for their trapping stiffness, trapping stability and variation of resonance wavelength due to the presence of a particle in the cavity.