ABSTRACT
We present a novel method for the efficient generation of even, odd, and helical Mathieu-Gauss beams of arbitrary order and ellipticity by means of a phase-only spatial light modulator (SLM). Our method consists of displaying the phase of the desired beam in the SLM; the reconstructed field is obtained on-axis following a spatial filtering process with an annular aperture. The propagation invariance and topological properties of the generated beams are investigated numerically and experimentally.
ABSTRACT
We introduce the use of hollow micron-sized spheres with a finite-thickness glass shell as individual micromirrors operating by total internal reflection (TIR) when illuminated off-axis. We also demonstrated that this kind of spheres can be optically trapped and manipulated in two dimensions using a Gaussian beam in a conventional optical tweezers setup, which allows the precise positioning of the micromirrors at specific locations within a sample cell. This mirrors constitutes a new micro-tool in the context of the so called lab-on-a-chip.
