Tunable Autofocusing and Enhanced Trapping Forces with Circular Pearcey Airy Beams

Abstract

We propose and demonstrate an autofocusing beam, named the circular Pearcey Airy beam (CPAB). It is found that the CPAB exhibits a superior autofocusing property, leading to an enhanced trapping force within the autofocusing region. By thoroughly analyzing the power flow and the trapping-force distribution, we present a quantitative understanding of the autofocusing properties and the trapping capabilities of the CPAB. We also show how to tune the autofocusing and trapping properties of the CPAB by adjusting the physical parameters, such as transverse scale factor, spatial offset, and exponential decay factor. Moreover, the CPAB exhibits multiple focusing peaks along the propagation direction, capable of trapping multiple particles longitudinally and periodically. These results indicate that the CPAB is promising for optical trapping and manipulations, which may be useful in various fields, including biological research and atomic physics.