Flexible particle manipulation techniques with conical refraction-based optical tweezers

摘要

We present an optimized optical tweezers system based upon the conical refraction of circularly polarized light in abiaxial crystal. The described optical arrangement avoids distortions to the Lloyd plane rings that become apparent whenworking with circularly polarized light in conventional optical tweezers. We demonstrate that the intensity distribution ofthe conically diffracted light permits optical manipulation of high and low refractive index particles simultaneously.Such trapping is in three dimensions and not limited to the Lloyd plane rings. By removal of a quarter waveplate thesystem also permits the study of linearly polarized conical refraction. We show that particle position in the Raman planeis determined by beam power, and indicates that true optical tweezing is not taking place in this part of the beam.© (2012) COPYRIGHT Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE). Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only.