Multidimensional optical tweezers synthetized by rigid-body emulated structured light

Abstract Structuring light with more extended degrees of freedom (DoFs) and in higher dimensions is increasingly gaining traction and leading to breakthroughs such as super-resolution imaging, larger-capacity communication, especially ultraprecise optical trapping or tweezers. More DoFs when manipulating an object can access more maneuvers and radically increase maneuvering precision, which is of significance in biology and related microscopic detection. However, manipulating particles beyond the three-dimensional (3D) spatial manipulation by using current all-optical tweezers technology remains difficult. To overcome this limitation, we theoretically and experimentally present six-dimensional (6D) structured optical tweezers based on tailoring structured light emulating rigid-body mechanics. Our method facilitates the evaluation of the methodology of rigid-body mechanics to synthesize six independent DoFs in a structured optical trapping system, akin to six-axis rigid-body manipulation, including surge, sway, heave, roll, pitch, and yaw. In contrast to previous 3D optical tweezers, our 6D structured optical tweezers significantly improved the flexibility of the path design of complex trajectories, thereby laying the foundation for next-generation functional optical manipulation, assembly, and micromechanics.