Abstract
We report on the experimental evidence of tilted polymer nanofiber rotation, using a highly focused linear polarized Gaussian beam. Torque is controlled by varying trapping power or fiber tilt angle. This suggests an alternative strategy to previously reported approaches for the rotation of nano-objects, to test fundamental theoretical aspects. We compare experimental rotation frequencies to calculations based on T-Matrix formalism, which accurately reproduces measured data, thus providing a comprehensive description of trapping and rotation dynamics of the linear nanostructures.
Highlights
Optical forces are currently employed to study a range of chemical, physical and biological problems, by trapping microscale objects and measuring sub pico-Newton forces [1,2,3]
We report on the experimental evidence of tilted polymer nanofiber rotation, using a highly focused linear polarized Gaussian beam
A critical angle depending on the trapping power, the fiber begins to rotate at constant rate ( Ω ) (Media 1)
Summary
Optical forces are currently employed to study a range of chemical, physical and biological problems, by trapping microscale objects and measuring sub pico-Newton forces [1,2,3]. The mechanisms for rotating consist in exploiting the physical properties of the trapping beam, the trapped object or both. A laser beam can carry intrinsic (spin) or extrinsic (orbital) angular momentum, associated to the polarization and to the light beam phase structure, respectively [4,5,6,7]. Either trapping beams with elliptical polarization or with a rotating linear polarization can be exploited to apply a torque to trapped objects [8,9,10,11,12]. Rotation of trapped particles can be induced by exploiting the phase structure (such as Laguerre-Gaussian or Bessel beams) or by modifying the spatial intensity profile of the trapping focal spot [13,14,15,16]. The rotatable object can be spherical, exhibiting a birefringence or a slight absorption, or it can have more complex shapes, as in microfabricated propellers by two-photon polymerization [17,18,19] or cylinders with inclined faces [20]
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