Ultrasensitive Absorption Spectroscopy of Optically-Trapped Aerosol Droplets

High-sensitivity optical absorption measurements on individual sub-picoliter aqueous droplets are reported using aerosol optical tweezers to simultaneously manipulate and characterize a sample droplet and a control droplet for comparison. It is demonstrated that the detection sensitivity to trace analytes is set by the weak absorption by the solvent, water, and that absorbances less than 5 x 10(-7) can be measured over pathlengths of less than 10 mu m. The potential applications of this approach to analyze aerosol particle composition and to perform trace analysis are discussed.