光热效应用于光纤光镊焦点位置的研究

光镊是利用光穿过处于系统焦点的物体时产生的动量变化对其施加力的作用,因此确定光镊系统焦点位置是极其重要的.但目前缺少有效确定光镊焦点的方法.本文提出利用测量皮安培量级电流的膜片钳技术,基于光在溶液中产生的光热效应来确定光纤端面出射光斑的焦点.基于水的吸收光谱,选用波长为980 nm、845 nm和功率为100 mW的激光作为光源.由于光热效应引起溶液电导的改变,影响流过玻璃微电极的电流,再用标准温度引起电流变化对膜片器放大器记录的电流标定,将电流值转换成温度值,获得微电极尖端点的温升值.用三维微操纵器控制玻璃微电极的空间位置,获得温度空间分布,从而确定该光斑焦点位置.     

Monitoring foam coarsening using a computer optical mouse as a dynamic laser speckle measurement sensor

In this paper, we present an experimental approach to track coarsening process of foam using a computer optical mouse as a dynamic laser speckle measurement sensor. The dynamics of foam coarsening and rearrangement events cause changes in the intensity of laser speckle backscattered from the foam. A strong negative correlation between the average speed of the cursor and the evolution of bubble diameter was found. We used microscopic images to demonstrate that decrease in speed is related to increase in bubble size. The proposed set-up is not very expensive, is highly portable and can be used in laboratory measurements of dynamics in other kinds of opaque materials.     

光热效应用于光纤光镊焦点位置的研究

光镊是利用光穿过处于系统焦点的物体时产生的动量变化对其施加力的作用,因此确定光镊系统焦点位置是极其重要的.但目前缺少有效确定光镊焦点的方法.本文提出利用测量皮安培量级电流的膜片钳技术,基于光在溶液中产生的光热效应来确定光纤端面出射光斑的焦点.基于水的吸收光谱,选用波长为980nm、845nm和功率为100mW的激光作为光源.由于光热效应引起溶液电导的改变,影响流过玻璃微电极的电流,再用标准温度引起电流变化对膜片器放大器记录的电流标定,将电流值转换成温度值,获得微电极尖端点的温升值.用三维微操纵器控制玻璃微电极的空间位置,获得温度空间分布,从而确定该光斑焦点位置.     

Extracting Work Optimally with Imprecise Measurements

Measurement and feedback allows for an external agent to extract work from a system in contact with a single thermal bath. The maximum amount of work that can be extracted in a single measurement and the corresponding feedback loop is given by the information that is acquired via the measurement, a result that manifests the close relation between information theory and stochastic thermodynamics. In this paper, we show how to reversibly confine a Brownian particle in an optical tweezer potential and then extract the corresponding increase of the free energy as work. By repeatedly tracking the position of the particle and modifying the potential accordingly, we can extract work optimally, even with a high degree of inaccuracy in the measurements.     

激光焊接熔透特征信号同轴增效提取方法研究

熔透检测是实现高功率激光焊接质量在线控制的重要环节,但由于介观尺度下的低辐值熔透特征信号产生于激光匙孔底部被匙孔喷射物质和周围干扰信号完全掩盖,熔透状态难以被直接获取,常规检测多以间接测量为主。将光谱透视技术、红外显微成像技术、光电传感技术及空间定位提取技术相结合,提出一种激光焊接熔透特征信号同轴增效提取方法。以高功率激光在匙孔内壁激发的荧光辐射源作为直接检测信号,利用不同发光体的谱段特性在红外谱段有效分离并抑制激光焊接匙孔上方的等离子体、金属蒸汽焰、粒子团簇等强干扰信号,使红外荧光信号得到有效增强,实现光谱透视显像效果。同时采用自行研制的激光焊接同轴显微光路系统,利用红外显微成像原理提取到匙孔内壁受激辐射荧光的红外显微实像。并以此为基础对高功率激光焊接熔透状态与匙孔内部影像特征进行关联研究,发现与熔透状态直接相关的低辐射值特征现象及特征区域的存在。通过视觉辅助定位调节和熔透特征位置试验矫正等寻位方式,依次提高定位精度,直至将传感器光电感应芯片高精度定位至荧光辐射实像中的熔透特征区域。由此通过光谱透视-显微成像-介观寻位萃取的逐层光学分离方式,实现了对匙孔熔透特征数据的精准提取和最大化增强。试验结果表明,基于多种光谱及光学处理技术复合应用的大功率固体激光焊熔透特征同轴增效提取方法对激光熔透特征信号增强效果显著,可作为一种新型的高功率激光焊接熔透在线检测手段。     

Graphene-based Q-switched pulsed fiber laser in a linear configuration

A pulsed laser system is realized with graphene employed as a Q-switch.The graphene is exfoliated from its solution using an optical deposition and the optical tweezer effect.A fiber ferrule that already has the graphene deposited on it is inserted into an erbium-ytterbium laser(EYL)system with linear cavity configuration.We successfully demonstrate a pulsed EYL with a pulse duration of approximately 5.9μs and a repetition rate of 20.0 kHz.     

Extending a release-and-recapture scheme to single atom optical tweezer for effective temperature evaluation

By recording the fluorescence fraction of the cold atoms remaining in the magneto-optical trap (MOT) as a function of the release time,the release-and-recapture (R&R) method is utilized to evaluate the effective temperature of the cold atomic ensemble.We prepare a single atom in a large-magnetic-gradient MOT and then transfer the trapped single atom into a 1064-nm microscopic optical tweezer.The energy of the single atom trapped in the tweezer is further reduced by polarization gradient cooling (PGC) and the effective temperature is evaluated by extending the R&R technique to a single atom tweezer.The typical effective temperature of a single atom in the tweezer is improved from about 105 μK to about 17 μK by applying the optimum PGC phase.     

Colloidal interactions and self-assembly using DNA hybridization

The specific binding of complementary DNA strands has been suggested as an ideal method for directing the controlled self-assembly of microscopic objects. We report the first direct measurements of such DNA-induced interactions between colloidal microspheres, as well as the first colloidal crystals assembled using them. The interactions measured with our optical tweezer method can be modeled in detail by well-known statistical physics and chemistry, boding well for their application to directed self-assembly. The microspheres' binding dynamics, however, have a surprising power-law scaling that can significantly slow annealing and crystallization.     

Novel optical techniques for measurements of light extinction,scattering and absorption by single aerosol particles

Aerosol particles play important roles in a broad range of scientific disciplines, from atmospheric chemistry and physics, to the delivery of fuels for combustion and drugs to the lungs, and extending to industrial processes such as spray drying. Measurements of the light extinction, scattering and absorption by ensembles of aerosol particles can be used to non‐intrusively characterise aerosol particle samples. However, such measurements often lead to ambiguity in interpreting the properties and processes occurring on individual particles. In this review, recent developments in the use of laser based techniques to isolate and manipulate single particles and to characterise them will be highlighted. In particular, the use of cavity ring down spectroscopy, Bessel beams and optical tweezers for investigating light extinction, scattering and absorption, respectively, will be considered. The prospects for using optical techniques to interrogate the fundamental processes occurring in aerosol at the single particle level are discussed.     

Rotational motions of optically trapped microscopic particles by a vortex femtosecond laser

The rotational motions of the optically trapped microscopic particles by the vortex femtosecond laser beam are investigated in this paper.Black particles can be trapped and rotated by a vortex femtosecond laser beam very effectively because the vortex beam carries orbital angular momentum due to the helical wave-front structure in assoication with the central phase singularity.Trapped black particles rotate in the vortex beam due to the absorption of the angular momentum transferred from the vortex beam.The rotating directions of the trapped particles can be modulated by reversing the topological charge of the optical vortex in the vortex femtosecond beam.And the rotating speeds of the trapped microscopic particles greatly depend on the topological charges of the vortex tweezer and the used pulse energies.     

Blue-shifted plasmon resonance of individual size-selected gold nanoparticles

The future implementation of integrated photonic devices requires the creation of nanostructures with well defined morphological and optical properties. To this end, we deposited size-selected gold nanoparticles produced by a gas phase aggregation cluster source on transparent substrates at room temperature with controlled impact energy. Interferometric optical detection measurements using a supercontinuum laser source demonstrated a blue-shifted plasmon resonance at the single particle level. The blue shift was observed to be more pronounced for small single clusters down to 3 nm in size.     

Time-resolved two-color LII: size distributions of nano-particles from gas-to-particle synthesis

A two-color LII technique for in situ measurements of particle size distributions is described. The technique is based on the simultaneous detection of time-resolved LII signals at two different wavelengths with one-dimensional spatial resolution using a newly developed experimental setup. The ratio of both LII signals yields particle temperatures as a function of time and location. Measured particle temperature decays are numerically simulated based on a detailed cooling model for particle ensembles. Particle size distributions are obtained by fitting simulated particle temperature decays to measured ones using multi-dimensional non-linear regression. The two-color LII technique for particle sizing can be applied to a wide range of materials because it is independent of the optical properties of the particle material. Exemplarily, the measuring technique is applied to investigate the synthesis of nanoscaled metal oxide particle in a laser vaporization reactor.     

How to measure chi(3) of a nanoparticle

Most of the known methods to measure the nonlinear optical properties of materials deal with the bulk properties, but there are many demanding applications that require those measurements to be done on a single particle or a single molecule. We report a novel application of nonlinear optics to measure the third-order nonlinear optical susceptibility of nanoparticles in solutions. By measuring the power of the third harmonic generated in a diluted solution of nanoparticles, both the size and chi(3) can be extracted from a simple set of measurements.     

Calculation and optical measurement of laser trapping forces on non-spherical particles

Optical trapping, where microscopic particles are trapped and manipulated by light is a powerful and widespread technique, with the single-beam gradient trap (also known as optical tweezers) in use for a large number of biological and other applications. The forces and torques acting on a trapped particle result from the transfer of momentum and angular momentum from the trapping beam to the particle. Despite the apparent simplicity of a laser trap, with a single particle in a single beam, exact calculation of the optical forces and torques acting on particles is difficult. Calculations can be performed using approximate methods, but are only applicable within their ranges of validity, such as for particles much larger than, or much smaller than, the trapping wavelength, and for spherical isotropic particles. This leaves unfortunate gaps, since wavelength-scale particles are of great practical interest because they are readily and strongly trapped and are used to probe interesting microscopic and macroscopic phenomena, and non-spherical or anisotropic particles, biological, crystalline, or other, due to their frequent occurance in nature, and the possibility of rotating such objects or controlling or sensing their orientation. The systematic application of electromagnetic scattering theory can provide a general theory of laser trapping, and render results missing from existing theory. We present here calculations of force and torque on a trapped particle obtained from this theory and discuss the possible applications, including the optical measurement of the force and torque.     

New algorithm and system for measuring size distribution of blood cells

In optical scattering particle sizing, a numerical transform is sought so that a particle size distribution can be determined from angular measurements of near forward scattering, which has been adopted in the measurement of blood cells. In this paper a new method of counting and classification of blood cell, laser light scattering method from stationary suspensions, is presented. The genetic algorithm combined with nonnegative least squared algorithm is employed to inverse the size distribution of blood cells. Numerical tests show that these techniques can be successfully applied to measuring size distribution of blood cell with high stability.     

A theoretical study of the feasibility of acoustical tweezers: ray acoustics approach

The optical tweezer has been found to have many biomedical applications in trapping macromolecules and cells. For the trapping mechanism, there has to be a sharp spatial change in axial optical intensity and the particle size must be much greater than the wavelength. Similar phenomenon may exist in acoustics. This work was undertaken to demonstrate theoretically that it is possible to acoustically trap particles near the focal point where most of the acoustic energy is concentrated if certain conditions are met. Acoustic force exerted on a fluid particle in ultrasonic fields is analyzed in a ray acoustics regime where the wavelength of acoustic beam is much smaller than the size of the particle. In order to apply the acoustical tweezer to manipulating macromolecules and cells whose size is in the order of a few microns or less, a prerequisite is that the ultrasound wavelength has to be much smaller than a few microns. In this paper, the analysis is therefore based on the field pattern produced by a strongly focused 100 MHz ultrasonic transducer with Gaussian intensity distribution. For the realization of acoustic trapping, negative axial radiation force has to be generated to pull a particle towards a focus. The fat particle considered for acoustic trapping in this paper has an acoustic impedance of 1.4 MRayls. The magnitude of the acoustic axial radiation force that has been calculated as the size of the fat particle is varied from 8lambda to 14lambda. In addition, both Fresnel coefficients at various positions are also calculated to assess the interaction of reflection and refraction and their relative contribution to the effect of the acoustical tweezer. The simulation results show that the feasibility of the acoustical tweezer depends on both the degree of acoustic impedance mismatch and the degree of focusing relative to the particle size.     

A New Probe for Mechanical Testing of Nanostructures in Soft Materials

We report a new application of the optical tweezers, where a harmonically driven oscillating tweezer is combined with the forward light scattering and lock-in amplification techniques, for probing the mechanics of nanostructures in soft materials in a broad frequency range. Model independent dynamic moduli G and G of the material at a localized, sub-micron area can be measured directly from the displacement and the phase shift of the particle in the oscillating trap. The probe particles can be as small as 200nm and the displacement of the particle was in the range of a few nanometers. To illustrate the new methodology, we show the microscopic viscoelastic properties of a transient polymer network in the vicinity of a silica bead.     

Microscopic simulation of semiconductor lasers at telecommunication wavelengths

We consider two GaAs-based laser materials emitting at telecommunication wavelengths, namely the dilute nitride (GaIn)(NAs) as well as Ga(AsSb), and model their optical properties by including scattering and dephasing on a microscopic basis. The theory shows an excellent agreement with experiment without the inclusion of fit parameters such as phenomenological scattering times. By careful comparison of measurements and computations, one can extract controversial bandstructure parameters such as the band offset.     

Light scattering simulation for the characterization of sintered silver nanoparticles

Light scattering is a useful tool in optical particle characterization. It can help to understand the nature of single particles as well as systems or clusters of particles; information about particle sizes, materials or shapes can be gathered. In this paper we investigate the application of light scattering studies to the analysis of a sintering process of silver nanoparticles. For this we first simulate the scattering behavior of two silver spheres. Then we assume sintering between them, leading to a single particle with a concave, peanut-like shape. We approximate this shape by a Cassini-oval. For light scattering studies we use an advanced T-matrix algorithm, the Nullfield Method with Discrete Sources. This method proved to be capable of simulating light scattering by concave particles. To make sure that the calculated data are correct we do comparative simulations using the Discrete Sources Method.     

Optical tweezers for confocal microscopy

In confocal laser scanning microscopes (CLSMs), lasers can be used for image formation as well as tools for the manipulation of microscopic objects. In the latter case, in addition to the imaging lasers, the light of an extra laser has to be focused into the object plane of the CLSM, for example as optical tweezers. Imaging as well as trapping by optical tweezers can be done using the same objective lens. In this case, z-sectioning for 3D imaging shifts the optical tweezers with the focal plane of the objective along the optical axis, so that a trapped object remains positioned in the focal plane. Consequently, 3D imaging of trapped objects is impossible without further measures. We present an experimental set-up keeping the axial trapping position of the optical tweezers at its intended position whilst the focal plane can be axially shifted over a distance of about 15 μm. It is based on fast-moving correctional optics synchronized with the objective movement. First examples of application are the 3D imaging of chloroplasts of Elodea densa (Canadian waterweed) in a vigorous cytoplasmic streaming and the displacement of zymogen granules in pancreatic cancer cells (AR42 J). Received: 24 March 2000 / Revised version: 23 June 2000 / Published online: 11 October 2000