Epicycle-model-guided arbitrary shaped customization of structured light

Abstract

Structured light has been exploited as an important tool for particle manipulation along a desired complex path. However, generating the required structured light illumination for the creation of an arbitrary shape without an analytic expression as a guide is challenging, specifically for designing a structured beam by mapping the shape of an arbitrary object. To address this issue, we propose an effective scheme to customize structured light freely and precisely by modifying the epicycle model in astrophysics. Predesigned structured beams can be identified with or without explicit analytic expressions of the desired shapes. Moreover, we study the roles and relationships between the number of epicycles and the number of key points. The local stretching and transformation of a specific structured beam are also analyzed. The advantages of the proposed method are demonstrated by conducting dynamic manipulation experiments using polystyrene particles. This method is simple and intuitive and provides an effective toolkit for the design of structured light for more complex tasks, thus facilitating advanced applications in optical manipulations.

Mind-Controlled Optical Manipulation

“…The rotation rate of particles can be controlled by the magnitude of topological charge of the vortex beam, and the rotation direction is tuned via the sign of topological charge. The OAM of light is related to the helical phase front of optical vortex beam, quantized by L = l ℏ per photon, where l is the topological charge and ℏ is the reduced Planck constant. , After that, various structured lights with tailored phase and amplitude have been developed for optical manipulation. − Meanwhile, human–computer interfaces were introduced to optical tweezers, which allow the operator to control the movement of micro-objects using different sensors, such as an optically trapped glove, a joystick-controlled gripper, and a multimodal natural user interface. , Besides, some new approaches for optical manipulation have also been proposed, such as plasmonic tweezers, , six-dimensional structured optical tweezers, and heat-mediated techniques . Optical tweezers for their noncontact and precise manipulation features have promising applications in materials science, nanofabrication, − atomic physics, − and biological fields. − It is worth noting that all the aforementioned optical manipulation approaches are controlled by mechanical actuators rather than the human brain.…”

Young’s double-slit experiment with undulator vortex radiation in the photon-counting regime

“…For example, spectroscopic measurements have been conducted to identify new selection rules in electronic transitions induced by OVs 2 . Additionally, studies have explored the trapping of microparticles (optical tweezers) 3 , 4 , and the transfer of helicity to materials 5 , 6 through the physical influence of the helical structure of OVs, along with enantioselective crystal nucleation 7 and OAM dichroism 8 . The beam profile characteristic of OVs, which features zero intensity at the center, has found application in stimulated emission depletion (STED) microscopy, which was recognized with the 2014 Nobel Prize in Chemistry 9 .…”