A dual-fiber optical trap system to trap and rotate a borosilicate microsphere has been proposed and experimentally demonstrated. The trapping system can be used as a probe to measure environmental parameters, such as torque, force, and viscosity of the surrounding medium. Under various conditions with different fiber misalignments, optical power, and fiber separation, the trapped sphere will exhibit three motion profiles including random oscillation, round rotation, and abnormal rotation. The power spectrum analysis method is used to measure rotation rates up to 385 Hz, which can be further increased by increasing laser power. In addition, simulation and experiment show consistent results in rotation rates and motion trajectory, which verifies the validity and accuracy of dynamic analysis.

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Optical trap, a circularly polarized laser beam can levitate and control the rotation of microspheres in liquid medium with high stiffness. Trapping force performs as confinement while the trapped particle can be analog to a liquid floated gyroscope with three degree-of-freedom. In this work, we analyzed the feasibility of applying optically levitated rotor in the system. We presented the dynamic analysis and simulation of an ellipsoid micron particle. The precession motion and nutation motion of a rotating ellipsoid probe particle in optical tweezers were performed. We also analyzed the attitude changes of an optically levitated ellipsoid when there was variation of the external torque caused by deviation of the incident light that was provided. Furthermore, the trail path of the rotational axis vertex and the stabilization process of a particle of different ellipticities were simulated. We compared the movement tendencies of particles of different shapes and analyzed the selection criteria of ellipsoid rotor. These analytical formulae and simulation results are applicable to the analysis of the rotational motion of particles in optical tweezers, especially to the future research of the gyroscope effect.