Optical binding of polystyrene microparticle pairs in retro-reflected wide Gaussian beam, called "tractor beam", is studied experimentally and the results are compared with the numerical calculations based on the multiple-particle Mie scattering theory. To investigate the dynamics of optically bound particle pairs in three dimensions we employ holographic video microscopy technique. We show that the particle pair motion is strongly dependent on the relative distances of the particles and the switching between applying pushing and pulling force on particle pairs can be achieved only by changing their configuration even though the "tractor-beam" parameters remain unchanged.

Date Published: 23 December 2016
PDF: 7 pages
Proc. SPIE 10142, 20th Slovak-Czech-Polish Optical Conference on Wave and Quantum Aspects of Contemporary Optics, 101420Q (23 December 2016); doi: 10.1117/12.2263360

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 10142:
20th Slovak-Czech-Polish Optical Conference on Wave and Quantum Aspects of Contemporary Optics
Jarmila Müllerová; Dagmar Senderáková; Libor Ladányi; Ľubomír Scholtz, Editor(s)