Dynamic microparticle manipulation through light structures generated by a self-calibrated Liquid Crystal on Silicon display

Abstract

This paper is devoted to investigate the application of different dynamic light structures generated by a self-calibrated Liquid Crystal on Silicon (LCoS) display for microparticle manipulation. Two major studies based on implementing different DOEs, to thoroughly characterize the LCoS display and to achieve optical-inspired particle manipulation, are proposed, respectively. On the one hand, we dynamically introduced the billet-lens configuration and the micro-lens array pattern on the LCoS display, from which the self-calibration of the studied device is implemented. In this case, both the phase-voltage relation and the surface profile were determined and optimized to the optimal performance for microparticle manipulation. On the other hand, we performed the optical manipulation of microparticles by addressing configurable three-dimensional light structures obtained from different phase driven split-lens configurations initiated by the same but optimized LCoS display. Experimental results demonstrated that, by addressing certain phase distributions on the LCoS display, the microparticle can be trapped in the light cones and manipulated by providing certain continuous split-lens configurations.

Microparticle Manipulation and Imaging through a Self-Calibrated Liquid Crystal on Silicon Display

“…On the contrary, LP2 acts as a second filter and the wavefront recorded by the second CCD can be assimilated to Equation (11). Therefore, the final reconstructed holographic wavefront imaging of the object without the conjugate image can be achieved by considering Equation (13). Moreover, we want to note that such IL holographic system presents another advantage apart from the conjugate image removing as it is feasible to record dynamic processes, which is extremely favored for the study of particles in motion.…”

“…Into the amplitude modulation scheme, output intensity distribution can be customized by properly modifying the polarization spatial distribution of the wavefront, and projecting it over a linear analyzer, being this configuration commonly used for imaging proposes. Conversely, LCoS displays operating in the phase-only regime are commonly used for phase modulation, being of interest in a wide number of applications, such as microstructure fabrication [6], holography [7,8], biomedical applications [9], waveguide optics [10], optical switching [11], microparticle manipulation [12,13], etc. To guarantee an optimal working performance in all those applications, LCoS must be previously calibrated and optimized.…”

“…Once the LCoS display is optimized, we use it for optical applications. Two different applications we recently developed for microparticles imaging [23,24] and manipulation [12,13] are revised in this manuscript. First, we use such elements to realize customized three-dimensional light structures.…”

Synthetic-aperture spatial light modulation with interferometric correction of the point spread function

“…Engineering towards the smallest size of the point spread function (PSF) spot is desirable in many applications, e.g. for increasing data storage density [1,2], microparticle manipulations by optical trapping [3][4][5][6] or holographic projection [7]. To date, many works have been proposed that introduce different methods of reducing the size of PSFs, which are based on complex masks applied on a phase-only SLM combined with interferometric or numerical subtraction of two field distributions [8][9][10][11], mixed amplitude-phase filters [12,13], by special design of super-oscillatory lenses [14] or by pupil apodization [15][16][17][18].…”