Optical levitation using an LG01 vortex beam

Abstract

We present optical trapping and levitation of silver-coated hollow glass spheres using a LG01 vortex laser. We successfully levitate reflective targets ranging from 53μm to 93μm in diameter with powers ranging from 50mW to 1W. Our system is designed for long working distance trapping (40mm-100mm) which is desirable for in-vacuo alignment and manipulation of mass-limited microtargets for high energy plasma applications, by limiting optical component damage from high-intensity light-matter interactions.