Manman Li

Intrinsic optical torque of cylindrical vector beams on Rayleigh absorptive spherical particles

The intrinsic optical torque of a focused cylindrical vector beam on a Rayleigh absorptive spherical particle is calculated via the corrected dipole approximation. Numerical results show that, for the radially polarized input field, the torque is distributed in the focal plane strictly along the azimuthal direction anywhere except at the focus. This shows a completely different property from what is observed in the focusing of a circularly polarized beam, where a strong axial torque component arises. For other cylindrically polarized input fields, the torque tends to align itself along the radial direction, as the polarization angle (the angle between the electric vector and the radial direction) changes from 0° to 90°. When limited to considering the torque at the equilibrium position, we find that only for those input fields with polarization angles larger than 50°, the particle experiences a nonzero torque at its equilibrium position. This is verified by showing quantitatively the effects of the polarization angle on the magnitude and orientation of the torque at the equilibrium position.

Spinning and orbiting motion of particles in vortex beams with circular or radial polarizations

Focusing fields of optical vortex (OV) beams with circular or radial polarizations carry both spin angular momentum (SAM) and orbital angular momentum (OAM), and can realize non-axial spinning and orbiting motion of absorptive particles. Using the T-matrix method, we evaluate the optical forces and torques exerted on micro-sized particles induced by the OV beams. Numerical results demonstrate that the particle is trapped on the circle of intensity maxima, and experiences a transverse spin torque along azimuthal direction, a longitudinal spin torque, and an orbital torque, respectively. The direction of spinning motion is not only related to the sign of topological charge of the OV beam, but also to the polarization state. However, the topological charge controls the direction of orbiting motion individually. Optically induced rotations of particles with varying sizes and absorptivity are investigated in OV beams with different topological charges and polarization states. These results may be exploited in practical optical manipulation, especially for optically induced rotations of micro-particles.

Trapping of Rayleigh spheroidal particles by highly focused radially polarized beams

The optical forces and intrinsic optical torque of a highly focused radially polarized beam on a Rayleigh spheroidal particle are calculated with the dipole approximation. Numerical results show that the maximal trapping forces depend strongly on the orientation of the particle, and the torque is always perpendicular to the plane containing the major axis of the spheroid and the optical axis. As a result of optical mechanical and torque equilibrium, the spheroidal particle will stay at the focus with its major axis of the spheroid parallel to the optical axis.

Optical trapping force and torque on spheroidal Rayleigh particles with arbitrary spatial orientations.

We investigate the spatial orientation dependence of optical trapping forces and intrinsic torques exerted on spheroidal Rayleigh particles under irradiation of highly focused linearly and circularly polarized beams. It is revealed that the maximal trapping forces and torques strongly depend on the orientation of the spheroid, and the spheroidal particle is driven to be stably trapped at the beam focus with its major axis perpendicular to the optical axis. For a linearly polarized trapping beam, the optical torque is always perpendicular to the plane containing the major axis and the polarization direction of the incident beam. Therefore, the spheroid tends to rotate its major axis along with the polarization direction. However, for a circularly polarized trapping beam, the optical torque is always perpendicular to the plane containing the major axis and the optical axis. What is different from the linear polarization case is that the spheroid tends to have the major axis parallel to the projection of the major axis in the transverse plane. The optical torque in the circular polarization case is half of that in the linear polarization case. These optical trapping properties may be exploited in practical optical manipulation, especially for the nonspherical particles trapping.

Curved optical tubes in a 4Pi focusing system

We demonstrate the possibility of creating curved optical tubes in a 4Pi focusing system. The focal fields of such optical tubes have interesting properties: the energy is concentered in the neighborhood of a prescribed three-dimensional (3D) curve while the cross section is of hollow shape. The creation of these optical tubes is based on the annular focal spot of a vortex beam, which is employed as a building block. An optical tube is thus obtained by covering the central-axis curve of the tube by various such building blocks. Each building block has a certain orientation and position, realized by a rotation plus a certain translation. The spatial spectrum (the input field as well) of the optical tube is obtained by linearly superposing the spectrum of each transformed building block. The curve is rather arbitrary. Three examples of optical tubes: a torus, a solenoid and a trefoil knot are given, showing a good agreement with the expected results.

Accelerating beams with non-parabolic trajectories

We present a family of one-dimensional accelerating beams in the paraxial limit whose trajectory is described, in normalized coordinates (ξ, s), by a non-parabolic curve ξ = α(s) with α(s) denoting the transverse shift of beams. When taking different values of the parameters appearing in α(s), three types of accelerating beams are observed. The first type accelerates initially along X direction and almost stops accelerating after traveling a large distance. The second type is seen to travel along a straight line with an angle with respect to the Z-axis at large distance. The beam of the last type is seen to leave initially upward and cross the Z-axis downward after traveling some distance.

Aberration correction in holographic optical tweezers using a high-order optical vortex: publisher's note (vol 57, pg 3618, 2018)

This publishers note identifies an error in the author affiliations of Appl. Opt.57, 3618 (2018)APOPAI0003-693510.1364/AO.57.003618.

Aberration correction in holographic optical tweezers using a high-order optical vortex

Holographic optical tweezers are a powerful optical trapping and manipulation tool in numerous applications such as life science and colloidal physics. However, imperfections in the spatial light modulator and optical components of the system will introduce detrimental aberrations to the system, thereby degrading the trapping performance significantly. To address this issue, we develop an aberration correction technique by using a high-order vortex as the correction metric. The optimal Zernike polynomial coefficients for quantifying the system aberrations are determined by comparing the distorted vortex and the ideal one. Efficiency of the proposed method is demonstrated by comparing the optical trap intensity distribution, trap stiffness, and particle dynamics in a Gaussian trap and an optical vortex trap, before and after aberration corrections.

Three-dimensional characterization of tightly focused fields for various polarization incident beams

Tightly focused vectorial optical beams have found extensive applications in variety of technical fields like single-molecule detection, optical tweezers, and super-resolution optical microscopy. Such applications require an accurate measurement and manipulation of focal optical fields. We have developed a compact instrument (with dimensions of 35 × 35 × 30 cm3) to rapidly measure the intensity distribution in three dimensions of the focused fields of vectorial beams and any other incident beams. This instrument employs a fluorescent nanoparticle as a probe to scan the focal region to obtain a high spatial resolution of intensity distribution. It integrates a liquid-crystal spatial light modulator to allow for tailoring the point spread function of the optical system, making it a useful tool for multi-purpose and flexible research. The robust applicability of the instrument is verified by measuring the 3D intensity distributions of focal fields of various polarization and wavefront modulated incident beams focused by a high NA (=1.25) objective lens. The minimal data acquisition time achievable in the experiment is about 8 s for a scanning region of 3.2 × 3.2 μm2 (512 × 512 pixels). The measured results are in good agreement with those predicted by the vectorial diffraction theory.

Accelerating incoherent hollow beams beyond the paraxial regime

We propose a non-paraxial hollow accelerating beam, which is formed by incoherently superposing two well-designed coherent accelerating beams. Very interestingly, this incoherent superposition does not hamper the acceleration dynamics pertaining to the coherent ones, but results in a hollow intensity pattern in the cross section transverse to the circular accelerating trajectory. By a simple optimization, this hollow cross section pattern can be effectively extended to an angle close to 90°. The magnitude and the phase of the angular spectrum of the beam are given followed by a suggested scheme to generate the beam in practice. Such highly self-bending hollow beams may find applications in some fields such as optical manipulation.