Open AccessOptical guiding of aerosol droplets
Author(s) -
Michael D. Summers,
Jonathan P. Reid,
David McGloin
Publication year - 2006
Publication title -
optics express
Language(s) - Uncategorized
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.394
H-Index - 271
ISSN - 1094-4087
DOI - 10.1364/oe.14.006373
Subject(s) - bessel beam , optics , aerosol , gaussian beam , axicon , beam (structure) , context (archaeology) , bessel function , radiation pressure , materials science , optical tweezers , gaussian , laser beams , physics , laser , meteorology , paleontology , biology , quantum mechanics
We characterize the ability of Gaussian and Bessel beams to guide water, ethanol and dodecane aerosol droplets. Droplets produced from a nebuliser source are trapped using radiation pressure and then by varying the beam power are controllably guided in a vertical direction. The use of a zeroth-order Bessel beam, which has a non-diffracting thin core, is shown to improve guiding distances over a comparable Gaussian beam by more than three times with guiding distances of up to 2.75mm for dodecane droplets. We discuss the applications for this work in the context of tools for optically manipulating airborne particles.