Photon-efficient optical tweezers via wavefront shaping

Fuente: arXiv
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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Būtaitė, Unė G., Sharp, Christina, Horodynski, Michael, Gibson, Graham M., Padgett, Miles J., Rotter, Stefan, Taylor, Jonathan M., Phillips, David B.
Format: Preprint
Published: 2023
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author Būtaitė, Unė G.
Sharp, Christina
Horodynski, Michael
Gibson, Graham M.
Padgett, Miles J.
Rotter, Stefan
Taylor, Jonathan M.
Phillips, David B.
author_facet Būtaitė, Unė G.
Sharp, Christina
Horodynski, Michael
Gibson, Graham M.
Padgett, Miles J.
Rotter, Stefan
Taylor, Jonathan M.
Phillips, David B.
contents Optical tweezers enable non-contact trapping of micro-scale objects using light. Despite their widespread use, it is currently not known how tightly it is possible to three-dimensionally trap micro-particles with a given photon budget. Reaching this elusive limit would enable maximally-stiff particle trapping for precision measurements on the nanoscale, and photon-efficient tweezing of light-sensitive objects. Here we solve this problem by customising a trapping light field to suit a specific particle, with the aim of simultaneously optimising trap stiffness in all three dimensions. Initially taking a theoretical approach, we develop an efficient multi-parameter optimisation routine to design bespoke optical traps for a wide range of micro-particles. We show that the confinement volume of micro-spheres held in these sculpted traps can be reduced by one-to-two orders-of-magnitude in comparison to a conventional optical tweezer of the same power. We go on to conduct proof-of-principle experiments, and use a wavefront shaping inspired strategy to suppress the Brownian fluctuations of optically trapped micro-spheres in every direction concurrently, thus demonstrating order-of-magnitude reductions in their confinement volumes. Our work paves the way towards the fundamental limits of optical control over the mesoscopic realm.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2304_12848
institution arXiv
publishDate 2023
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Photon-efficient optical tweezers via wavefront shaping
Būtaitė, Unė G.
Sharp, Christina
Horodynski, Michael
Gibson, Graham M.
Padgett, Miles J.
Rotter, Stefan
Taylor, Jonathan M.
Phillips, David B.
Optics
Optical tweezers enable non-contact trapping of micro-scale objects using light. Despite their widespread use, it is currently not known how tightly it is possible to three-dimensionally trap micro-particles with a given photon budget. Reaching this elusive limit would enable maximally-stiff particle trapping for precision measurements on the nanoscale, and photon-efficient tweezing of light-sensitive objects. Here we solve this problem by customising a trapping light field to suit a specific particle, with the aim of simultaneously optimising trap stiffness in all three dimensions. Initially taking a theoretical approach, we develop an efficient multi-parameter optimisation routine to design bespoke optical traps for a wide range of micro-particles. We show that the confinement volume of micro-spheres held in these sculpted traps can be reduced by one-to-two orders-of-magnitude in comparison to a conventional optical tweezer of the same power. We go on to conduct proof-of-principle experiments, and use a wavefront shaping inspired strategy to suppress the Brownian fluctuations of optically trapped micro-spheres in every direction concurrently, thus demonstrating order-of-magnitude reductions in their confinement volumes. Our work paves the way towards the fundamental limits of optical control over the mesoscopic realm.
title Photon-efficient optical tweezers via wavefront shaping
topic Optics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2304.12848