Abstract

The trapping efficiency and stiffness of optical tweezers using radial polarization are evaluated; the ray-tracing method and a proposed measurement method are used for numerical and experimental analyses, respectively. The maximum axial trapping efficiency with radial polarization is 1.84 times that with linear polarization, while the maximum transverse trapping efficiency decreases by 0.58 times. Further, the axial and transverse trapping efficiencies are found to be 1.19 times larger and 0.83 times smaller, respectively, than the values with linear polarization. From the experiments, the axial and transverse stiffness values are 1.2 times larger and 0.8 times smaller, respectively, with radial polarization. Hence, radial polarization enhances the axial trapping properties while reducing the transverse trapping properties.

© 2009 Optical Society of America

Finding trap stiffness of optical tweezers using digital filters

Pedro Almendarez-Rangel, Beatriz Morales-Cruzado, Erick Sarmiento-Gómez, and Francisco G. Pérez-Gutiérrez
Appl. Opt. 57(4) 652-658 (2018)

Axial optical trapping forces on two particles trapped simultaneously by optical tweezers

Shenghua Xu, Yinmei Li, and Liren Lou
Appl. Opt. 44(13) 2667-2672 (2005)

Longer axial trap distance and larger radial trap stiffness using a double-ring radially polarized beam

Yaoju Zhang, Taikei Suyama, and Biaofeng Ding
Opt. Lett. 35(8) 1281-1283 (2010)

Increasing trap stiffness with position clamping in holographic optical tweezers

Daryl Preece, Richard Bowman, Anna Linnenberger, Graham Gibson, Steven Serati, and Miles Padgett
Opt. Express 17(25) 22718-22725 (2009)

Supercontinuum trap stiffness measurement using a confocal approach

Zhe Zhang, Haifeng Li, Peng Li, Kebin Shi, Perry Edwards, Fiorenzo Omenetto, Mark Cronin-Golomb, Guizhong Zhang, and Zhiwen Liu
Opt. Express 18(25) 26499-26504 (2010)