Optical micromanipulation of microscopic particles using axicontipped fiber

Trapping and manipulation of microscopic objects using fiber optical traps is gaining considerable interest, as these objects can be manipulated inside complex environments, thus removing the limitation of short working distance of the conventional optical tweezers. We show that an axicon like structure built on the tip of a single mode optical fiber produces a focused beam shape with a central hole, implying a very small fraction of the power traveling with rays nearly parallels to the optical axis. Interesting transportation behavior of polystyrene particles using the scattering forces from such an axicon tip fiber was observed. As the distance of the particle from the fiber tip increased, since almost no rays interact with the particle, the scattering forces decreased substantially. Therefore, velocity of the particle at different distances was found to depend much more critically on the particle size in contrast to the beam generated by the bare fiber. While the speed of transport could be increased linearly by increasing the laser power in both axicon tipped fiber and bare fiber, increased speed was observed for particles of larger sizes for both the fiber types. However, the fractional increase in speed for increased size of particles was found to be quite large for axicon tipped fiber as compared to the bare fiber. Use of the observed differences in speed of transportation of microscopic objects could be used to sort them based upon their size.