In this study, we demonstrate an asymmetric counter-propagating beam system with engineered optical forces allowing for long-range particle trapping and manipulation. We achieved this by breaking the symmetry of the well-known counter-propagating optical trapping beams. By doing so, we extend the range of optical forces for particle confinement and transportation to significantly larger foci separations, creating an optical tunnel. These tunnels are capable of moving matter forward and back with controllable speeds for more than a millimeter length with the ability to bring them to a full stop at any point, creating a stable 3D trap. Our trap stiffness measurements for the asymmetric trapping system demonstrate at least one order of magnitude larger values with respect to the symmetric counter-propagating beams so far reported. Our system is quite versatile as it allows for single or multi trapping with flexible positioning of any size particle ranging from tens of nanometers to tens of microns with powers as low as a few milliwatts.

The well-known counter-propagating optical traps require the beams to be symmetrical for 3D trapping, resulting in a highly-sensitive system. Here, we study an easy-to-align counter-propagating trap with a broken symmetry, demonstrating stable trapping over millimeter-range.

We present the theory of parametrically resonant surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs). We show that a temporal modulation of the dielectric properties of the medium adjacent to a metallic surface can lead to efficient energy injection into the SPP modes supported at the interface. When the permittivity modulation is induced by a pump field exceeding a certain threshold intensity, such a field undergoes a reverse saturable absorption process. We introduce a time-domain formalism to account for pump saturation and depletion effects. Finally, we discuss the viability of these effects for optical limiting applications.

While Optical Tweezers (OT) are mostly used for confining smaller size particles, the counter-propagating (CP) dual-beam traps have been a versatile method for confining both small and larger size particles including biological specimen. However, CP traps are complex sensitive systems, requiring tedious alignment to achieve perfect symmetry with rather low trapping stiffness values compared to OT. Moreover, due to their relatively weak forces, CP traps are limited in the size of particles they can confine which is about 100µm. In this paper, a new class of counter-propagating optical tweezers with a broken symmetry is discussed and experimentally demonstrated to trap and manipulate larger than 100µm particles inside liquid media. Our technique exploits a single Gaussian beam folding back on itself in an asymmetrical fashion forming a CP trap capable of confining small and significantly larger particles (up to 250µm in diameter) based on optical forces only. Such optical trapping of large-size specimen to the best of our knowledge has not been demonstrated before. The broken symmetry of the trap combined with the retro-reflection of the beam has not only significantly simplified the alignment of the system, but also made it robust to slight misalignments and enhances the trapping stiffness as shown later. Moreover, our proposed trapping method is quite versatile as it allows for trapping and translating of a wide variety of particle sizes and shapes, ranging from one micron up to a few hundred of microns including microorganisms, using very low laser powers and numerical aperture optics. This in turn, permits the integration of a wide range of spectroscopy techniques for imaging and studying the optically trapped specimen. As an example, we will demonstrate how this novel technique enables simultaneous 3D trapping and light-sheet microscopy of C. elegans worms with up to 450µm length.

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