Experimental Investigation of Three-dimensional Optical Trapping Characteristics of a Micro Object Using Optical Fibers

Abstract

We studied the optical forces acting on a sphere in order to corroborate the three-dimensional optical trapping by the laser beams from optical fiber ends inserted at an angle. From these investigations, we verified that the stiffness of the produced restoring forces to the equilibrium point depended on the horizontal distance between each optical fiber end, and the strong restoring force could be obtained when the beam waists of the laser beams from lensed optical fiber ends coincided at the beam-crossing point.