In this paper, we present theoretical studies on nonlinear laser trapping of metal/dielectric core/shell nanoparticles using the generalized Lorenz-Mie theory. We discuss the effect of optical nonlinearity under femtosecond pulsed excitation including the effect of Fano-resonance.
Under short pulsed excitation, depending on the nonlinear refractive index of the particle and the surrounding medium, optical nonlinearity plays a significant role in modulating optical forces on particles. Here, we explore the trapping forces experienced by dielectric nanoparticles in a highly nonlinear medium taking into account nonlinear propagation of Gaussian beam.
Recent theoretical and experimental results have shown how the trapping force/potential can be dramatically modulated due to optical and thermal nonlinearity. Compared with dielectrics, metals show even more interesting behavior (for example, trap-splitting, enhanced forward scattering, etc.) owing to higher-order optical nonlinearities. Hence, we present a comparison study for dielectric and metallic nanoparticles using generalized Lorenz-Mie theory.
Recently, the effect of optical nonlinearity in laser trapping has been investigated under pulsed excitation, and it was observed that the inclusion of nonlinearity significantly modulates trapping potential for metallic nanoparticles using dipole approximation. In this paper, we present theoretical studies on nonlinear laser trapping for silver nanoparticles using generalized Lorenz-Mie theory. We observe a reversal in the direction of asymmetry of potential well and splitting of the potential well due to nonlinear effects which is further modulated with an increase in laser power.
The illusive nature of optical trapping dynamics under high repetition-rate femtosecond pulsed excitation has recently been theoretically explained based on nonlinear nature of force and potential arising from the optical Kerr effect. Here we present experimental results of trapping of 1 μm polystyrene beads probed by analyzing back-scattered signal from realtime video microscopy which is helpful in studying the time control dynamics of micron-sized objects suitable for biological applications.
In recent past, high-repetition-rate, ultrafast pulse excitation has been identified to play an important role in stable trapping of dielectric nanoparticles assisted by optical nonlinearity due to its high peak power. We experimentally demonstrate trapping of 100-nm fluorescent polystyrene particles by simultaneous detection of both two-photon fluorescence (TPF) and backscattered signals. Here we show that TPF signal decays over time due to photobleaching, but this signal is useful to know whether a particle is dragged toward the trap while backscattered signal provides detailed information about the particle’s dynamics inside the trap. We also discuss pros and cons of moving-averaging method (used to smooth noisy experimental data). We conclude that both TPF and backscattered detection methods are needed to explore the dynamics of the particle inside the potential well.
Laser trapping of 100nm diameter polystyrene bead under high repetition rate ultrafast pulsed excitation is studied
theoretically as well as experimentally. In our theoretical analysis, we explore the role of optical Kerr effect at
50mW average power under pulsed excitation. In our experiment, we use a CMOS camera to record two-photon
fluorescence signal from the trapped particle which decays with time due to photo-bleaching.
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