Laser trapping of colloidal metal nanoparticles.

Optical trapping using focused laser beams (laser tweezers) has been proven to be extremely useful for contactless manipulation of a variety of small objects, including biological cells, organelles within cells, and a wide range of other dielectric micro- and nano-objects. Colloidal metal nanoparticles have drawn increasing attention in the field of optical trapping because of their unique interactions with electromagnetic radiation, caused by surface plasmon resonance effects, enabling a large number of nano-optical applications of high current interest. Here we try to give a comprehensive overview of the field of laser trapping and manipulation of metal nanoparticles based on results reported in the recent literature. We also discuss and describe the fundamentals of optical forces in the context of plasmonic nanoparticles, including effects of polarization, optical angular momentum, and laser heating effects, as well as the various techniques that have been used to trap and manipulate metal nanoparticles. We conclude by suggesting possible directions for future research.

Plasmonic particles set into fast orbital motion by an optical vortex beam.

We optically trap plasmonic gold particles in two dimensions and set them into circular motion around the optical axis using a helically phased vortex laser beam. The orbiting frequency of the particles reaches 86 Hz, which corresponds to a particle velocity of the order 1 mm per second, for an incident laser power of a few tens of milliwatts. The experimentally determined orbiting frequencies are found to be well in line with the notion that the beam carries an orbital angular momentum of hl per photon.

Ultrafast spinning of gold nanoparticles in water using circularly polarized light.

Controlling the position and movement of small objects with light is an appealing way to manipulate delicate samples, such as living cells or nanoparticles. It is well-known that optical gradient and radiation pressure forces caused by a focused laser beam enables trapping and manipulation of objects with strength that is dependent on the particle's optical properties. Furthermore, by utilizing transfer of photon spin angular momentum, it is also possible to set objects into rotational motion simply by targeting them with a beam of circularly polarized light. Here we show that this effect can set ∼200 nm radii gold particles trapped in water in 2D by a laser tweezers into rotation at frequencies that reach several kilohertz, much higher than any previously reported light driven rotation of a microscopic object. We derive a theory for the fluctuations in light scattering from a rotating particle, and we argue that the high rotation frequencies observed experimentally is the combined result of favorable optical particle properties and a low local viscosity due to substantial heating of the particles surface layer. The high rotation speed suggests possible applications in nanofluidics, optical sensing, and microtooling of soft matter.

Resonance waveguide reflectors with semi-wide bandwidth at the visible wavelengths.

We present a resonance waveguide grating with relatively wide bandwidth in the visible region of the spectrum compared to typical resonance structures. The reflective properties of the grating are based on amorphous atomic layer deposited titanium dioxide which has rather high refractive index at the visible wavelengths. The resonance grating provides approximately 20-30 nm bandwidth with over 90% reflectance at the visible wavelengths. The measured reflectances of the fabricated elements show also very good agreement with the theoretical predictions. These kind of reflectors may be useful in applications that make use of LED sources.

Linear birefringence magnitude of artificial self-assembled DNA crystals.

We determine the linear birefringence magnitude, i.e. the difference between refractive indexes along the extraordinary and ordinary axes, of artificial uniaxial DNA crystals assembled with the so-called DNA tile approach. Based on the ellipsometric measurements, the birefringence magnitude is between 0.001 and 0.0018 in the visible and near infrared range. Besides being of fundamental interest, the optical properties of DNA crystals are crucial in the design of novel photonic nanostuctures.

Absorbing polarization selective resonant gratings.

We introduce resonant absorbers that consist of linear metal wires embedded inside of a titanium dioxide grating. We show that in these structures the guided-mode resonance may lead to the almost total absorption of one polarization component and greatly enhance the absorption in localized surface plasma resonance. In addition, we show that the structures have potential to function as filters or polarizing beamsplitters. Absorption of 99.67 % has been obtained together with the contrast of 6600 at the wavelength of 532 nm. This corresponds the extinction of 8.8597. The results have been verified experimentally by fabricating an absorbing filter with electron beam lithography and atomic layer deposition technique. The absorption is remarkably high considering the thickness of the structures which is only 219-333 nm.

Wire-grid polarizers in the volume plasmon region.

The properties of silver and aluminium wire-grid polarizers are examined in the volume plasmon frequency region where the transmittances of field with polarizations parallel and perpendicular to the grid lines are reversed with respect to their behavior outside the plasma region. Analysis of the behavior is conducted with effective approximate refractive index formulae and by simulations with rigorous Fourier modal method. The parallel polarization behaves as in a homogenous thin metal film while the perpendicular field is absorbed in the plasma region and transmitted otherwise. We further explain the performance by viewing the distribution of the field intensities inside the grating.

Mechanism of the large polarization rotation effect in the all-dielectric artificially chiral nanogratings.

The physical mechanism of the large polarization rotation effect in direct transmission of the all-dielectric artificially chiral nanogratings is explored by experiment and numerical analysis. It is shown that the different coupling of right- and left-circularly polarized components of the normally incident light to the leaky guided modes or Fabry-Pérot resonance modes lead to the enhanced circular dichroism, resulting in the giant polarization rotation effect. The mode profile and local field calculations demonstrate intuitive images of the different coupling performance at resonances.

Refractive index and extinction coefficient dependence of thin Al and Ir films on deposition technique and thickness.

We show that the optical properties of thin metallic films depend on the thickness of the film as well as on the deposition technique. Several thicknesses of electron-beam-gun-evaporated aluminium films were measured and the refractive index and the extinction coefficient defined using ellipsometry. In addition, the refractive indexes and the extinction coefficients of atomic-layer-deposited iridium were compared with those of evaporated iridium samples.

Common-path interferometer with diffractive lens.

We introduce a novel common-path interferometric measurement setup for optical quality testing. The setup is based on an optimized diffractive lens which produces two diffraction orders with equal efficiency and thus forms two interfering beams without any beam splitting or mirror alignments. The fabrication steps of the diffractive element are presented and the testing of the setup with injection molded millimeter scale lenses is briefly discussed.