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Monday, February 15, 2016

Polygonal micro-whirlpools induced in ferrofluids

Marcin Bacia, Weronika Lamperska, Jan Masajada, Slawomir Drobczynski, Maciej Marc

We report on the observation of the polygonal whirlpools in the thin layer of ferrofluid under illumination with a laser beam carrying optical vortex and in the presence of a vertical magnetic field. This kind of structures have attracted attention after discovering a hexagonal storm in Saturn’s atmosphere. Our polygonal whirlpools were created in a closed system (no free surfaces) in micro-scale (whirlpool diameter <20 μm) by the use of holographic optical tweezers. The polygonal shape was changed by varying the magnetic field strength or value of the optical vortex topological charge.

DOI

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