We investigate femtosecond laser trapping dynamics of two-photon absorbing hollow-core nanoparticles with different volume fractions and two-photon absorption (TPA) coefficients. Numerical simulations show that the hollow-core particles with low and high-volume fractions can easily be trapped and bounced by the tightly focused Gaussian laser pulses, respectively. Further studies show that the hollow-core particles with and without TPA can be identified, because the TPA effect enhances the radiation force, and subsequently the longitudinal force destabilizes the trap by pushing the particle away from the focal point. The results may find direct applications in particle sorting and characterizing the TPA coefficient of single nanoparticles.

By using a specialty optical fiber, a series of powerful microparticle manipulation tools, including optical tweezers, a micro-optical hand, and an optical gun, are developed and demonstrated. In this paper, a review of our research activities on the optical manipulation of microparticles is presented. In particular, we will describe a kind of specialty optical fiber designed and fabricated for building optical trapping and manipulating tools. The performances of annular core fiber-based optical tweezers, a multicore fiber-based micro-optical hand, and a coaxial dual waveguide fiber-based optical gun are demonstrated as examples of applications and discussed in detail. The fiber can be used in cell manipulation in life science and drug response in medicine.

Forward-scattering-light interferometry has become the most commonly used position detection scheme in optical levitation systems. Usually, three-set detectors are required to obtain the three-dimensional motion information. Here, we simplify the three-set detectors to one set by inserting a Dove prism. We investigate the role of a Dove prism in the position measurement process with an optical levitation system in vacuum. The relationship between the power spectral density and the rotation angle of a Dove prism is experimentally demonstrated and analyzed. This work shows that the Dove prism can greatly reduce the complexity of the experimental setup, which can be applied to compact optical levitation systems for studies in metrology, quantum physics, and biology.

Optical traps use focused laser beams to generate forces on targeted objects ranging in size from nanometers to micrometers. However, for their high coefficients of scattering and absorption, micrometer-sized metallic particles were deemed non-trappable in three dimensions using a single beam. This barrier is now removed. We demonstrate, both in theory and experiment, three-dimensional (3D) dynamic all-optical manipulations of micrometer-sized gold particles under high focusing conditions. The force of gravity is found to balance the positive axial optical force exerted on particles in an inverted optical tweezers system to form two trapping positions along the vertical direction. Both theoretical and experimental results confirm that stable 3D manipulations are achievable for these particles regardless of beam polarization and wavelength. The present work opens up new opportunities for a variety of in-depth research requiring metallic particles.

Optical trapping techniques are of great interest since they have the advantage of enabling the direct handling of nanoparticles. Among various optical trapping systems, photonic crystal nanobeam cavities have attracted great attention for integrated on-chip trapping and manipulation. However, optical trapping with high efficiency and low input power is still a big challenge in nanobeam cavities because most of the light energy is confined within the solid dielectric region. To this end, by incorporating a nanoslotted structure into an ultracompact one-dimensional photonic crystal nanobeam cavity structure, we design a promising on-chip device with ultralarge trapping potential depth to enhance the optical trapping characteristic of the cavity. In this work, we first provide a systematic analysis of the optical trapping force for an airborne polystyrene (PS) nanoparticle trapped in a cavity model. Then, to validate the theoretical analysis, the numerical simulation proof is demonstrated in detail by using the three-dimensional finite element method. For trapping a PS nanoparticle of 10 nm radius within the air-slot, a maximum trapping force as high as 8.28 nN/mW and a depth of trapping potential as large as 1.15×105 kBT mW 1 are obtained, where kB is the Boltzmann constant and T is the system temperature. We estimate a lateral trapping stiffness of 167.17 pN·nm 1· mW 1 for a 10 nm radius PS nanoparticle along the cavity x-axis, more than two orders of magnitude higher than previously demonstrated on-chip, near field traps. Moreover, the threshold power for stable trapping as low as 0.087 μW is achieved. In addition, trapping of a single 25 nm radius PS nanoparticle causes a 0.6 nm redshift in peak wavelength. Thus, the proposed cavity device can be used to detect single nanoparticle trapping by monitoring the resonant peak wavelength shift. We believe that the architecture with features of an ultracompact footprint, high integrability with optical waveguides/circuits, and efficient trapping demonstrated here will provide a promising candidate for developing a lab-on-a-chip device with versatile functionalities.

The principle of optical trapping is conventionally based on the interaction of optical fields with linear-induced polarizations. However, the optical force originating from the nonlinear polarization becomes significant when nonlinear optical nanoparticles are trapped by femtosecond laser pulses. Herein we develop the time-averaged optical forces on a nonlinear optical nanoparticle using high-repetition-rate femtosecond laser pulses, based on the linear and nonlinear polarization effects. We investigate the dependence of the optical forces on the magnitudes and signs of the refractive nonlinearities. It is found that the self-focusing effect enhances the trapping ability, whereas the self-defocusing effect leads to the splitting of the potential well at the focal plane and destabilizes the optical trap. Our results show good agreement with the reported experimental observations and provide theoretical support for capturing nonlinear optical particles.

The construction of a two-dimensional magneto–optical trap with hollow cooling and pushing (2D-HP MOT) is reported in detail, and a velocity-tunable cold atomic beam produced by this 2D-HP MOT is demonstrated. The magneto–optical trap system, which is constructed by a transparent quartz tube, is low in price, easy to fabricate and assemble, and convenient for atomic trapping and detection. The mean axial velocity of the cold atomic beam can be tuned from 4.5 to 8 m/s, while the atomic flux remains at a level of 1010 atoms/s. This cold atomic beam source can be applied in the areas of high-precision measurements based on cold atoms.