Particle aggregation/disaggregation and sorting using woven spiral beams

Abstract

Spiral beams (SBs) have attracted increasing attention in structured light fields owing to their chirality and rich modes. However, the wrench force of existing SBs is uncontrollable and nonadjustable, which greatly limits the complex applications of particle manipulation. To address this issue, we proposed a woven spiral beam (WSB) with a controllable force field. The WSB was constructed by reshaping multispiral beams woven through an SB. The proposed WSB has flexible adjustable intensity lobes, which are easy to modulate independently, including size, position, helicity, and phase gradient. Furthermore, the WSBs were used to experimentally execute important particle manipulations, such as aggregation/disaggregation and sorting. This study provides an alternative scheme for the functional applications of SBs, which leads to different application scenarios in optical manipulations.