Design and fabrication of micro-optical elements for the generation of various novel beams and its applications in optical tweezers

Abstract

Light assisted micro-manipulation techniques have provided a non-invasive technique to investigate microscopic world. Employing micro-optical elements for laser beam shaping can aggrandize the trapping capabilities of conventional optical tweezers system. In the paper we report the design parameters and fabrication techniques of diversified micro-optical elements. High quality Laguerre-Gaussian beams, Bessel beams, self-imaged bottle beams and fractional Bessel beams were achieved using such micro-optical elements. We further integrated these micro-elements in conventional optical tweezers systems for various trapping applications. Such micro-elements were high efficient (in terms of power conversion) which is an important criteria to be incorporated with the optical trapping systems. Due to its micro-size such micro-elements are potential candidates to be integrated with lab-on-a-chip techniques to realize next generation 'miniaturized optical trap'.