Related papers: Optical alignment and spinning of laser-trapped mi…
Twisted light beams, or optical vortices, have been used to drive the circular motion of microscopic particles in optical tweezers and have been shown to generate vortices in quantum gases. Recent studies have established that electric…
We report on rotating an optically trapped silica nanoparticle in vacuum by transferring spin angular momentum of light to the particle's mechanical angular momentum. At sufficiently low damping, realized at pressures below $10^{-5}$ mbar,…
Orbital angular momentum associated with the helical phase-front of optical beams provides an unbounded \qo{space} for both classical and quantum communications. Among the different approaches to generate and manipulate orbital angular…
To date, optical orientation of free-carrier spins and spin currents have been achieved by circularly polarized light, while the linearly polarized light has been used for optical alignment of electron momenta. Here we show that, in…
The polarization and orbital angular momentum properties of light are of great importance in optical science and technology in the fields of high precision optical measurements and high capacity and high speed optical communications. Here…
We report the first demonstration of a direct interaction between the extraordinary transverse spin angular momentum in evanescent waves and the intrinsic orbital angular momentum in optical vortex beams. By tapping the evanescent wave of…
Optical trapping is a well_established, decades old technology with applications in several fields of research. The most common scenario deals with particles that tend to be centered on the brightest part of the optical trap. Consequently,…
Light can carry a spin angular momentum, an intrinsic and extrinsic orbital angular momentum, associated with a circular polarization, optical vortex beams, and varying beam trajectories, respectively. The interplay between these momenta…
Light's orbital angular momentum (OAM) is an unbounded degree of freedom emerging in helical beams that appears very advantageous technologically. Using a chiral microlaser, i.e. an integrated device that allows generating an emission…
While the alignment and rotation of microparticles in optical traps have received increased attention recently, one of the earliest examples has been almost totally neglected the alignment of particles relative to the beam axis, as opposed…
Micron sized, neutral, non-dielectric particles immersed in a viscous fluid can be trapped in the focal plane of a Gaussian beam. A particle can absorb energy from such a beam with a large radial intensity gradient, resulting in substantial…
Maxwell noted that light carries angular momentum, and as such it can exert torques on material objects. This was subsequently proved by Beth in 1936. Applications of these opto-mechanical effects were limited initially due to their…
The optical binding of many particles has great potential to achieve the wide-area formation of a "crystal" of small materials. Unlike conventional optical binding, where the whole assembly of targeted particles is irradiated with light, if…
We experimentally demonstrate a technique for the generation of optical beams carrying orbital angular momentum using a planar semiconductor microcavity. Despite being isotropic systems, the transverse electric - transverse magnetic (TE-TM)…
Reflection and refraction of light can be used to trap small dielectric particles in the geometrical optics regime. Absorption of light is usually neglected in theoretical calculations, but it is known that it occurs in the optical trapping…
We report on the electrically driven rotation of $2.4~\mu$m-radius, optically levitated dielectric microspheres. Electric fields are used to apply torques to a microsphere's permanent electric dipole moment, while angular displacement is…
The theoretical possibility to use an electron microscope as a spin polarizer is studied. It turns out that a Bessel beam passing a standard magnetic objective lens is intrinsically spin polarized. In the limit of infinitely small detectors…
The optically levitated particles have been driven to rotate at an ultra-high speed of GHz, and the gyroscopic application of these levitated particles to measure angular motion have long been explored. However, this gyroscope has not been…
The nature of light-matter interaction is governed by the spatial-temporal structures of a light field and material wavefunctions. The emergence of the light beam with transverse phase vortex, or equivalently orbital angular momentum (OAM)…
The successful development and optimisation of optically-driven micromachines will be greatly enhanced by the ability to computationally model the optical forces and torques applied to such devices. In principle, this can be done by…