Optical angular momentum transfer to microrotors fabricated by two-photon photopolymerization

Theodor Asavei, Vincent L Y Loke, Marco Barbieri, Timo A Nieminen, Norman R Heckenberg and Halina Rubinsztein-Dunlop

We design, fabricate and test optically driven microrotors a few microns in size. The rotors are trapped and rotated in optical tweezers using an LG02 Laguerre–Gaussian laser beam. We verify that we can accurately measure the total optical torque by measuring the spin angular momentum transfer for three different polarizations, by comparing the optical torque with the optical torque calculated using computational electrodynamics and the viscous drag torque determined from the rotation rate and computational fluid dynamics. The torque agrees with that expected from the design principles and electromagnetic modelling of the torque within the optical trap.

DOI