Optimizing optical trap stiffness for Rayleigh particles with an Airy array beam

Abstract

The Airy array beams are attractive for optical manipulation of particles owing to their non-diffraction and auto-focusing properties. An Airy array beams is composed of N Airy beams which accelerate mutually and symmetrically in opposite direction, for different ballistics trajectories, that is, with different initial launch angles. Based on this, we investigate the optical force distribution acting on Rayleigh particles. Results show that is possible to obtain greater stability, for optical trapping, increasing the number of beams in the array. Also, the intensity focal point and gradient and scattering force of array on Rayleigh particles can be controlled through a launch angle parameter.