title: Trapping and guiding microparticles with morphing autofocusing Airy beams.
abstract: We observe optical trapping and manipulation of dielectric microparticles using autofocusing radially symmetric Airy beams. This is accomplished by exploiting either the inward or outward transverse acceleration associated with their chirped wavefronts. We experimentally demonstrate, for the first time to our knowledge, that such Airy beams morph into nondiffracting Bessel beams in their far-field. Furthermore, the ability of guiding and transporting microparticles along the primary rings of this class of beams is explored.
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics and Astronomy, San Francisco State University, San Francisco, California 94132, USA.
authors.forename: Peng
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.forename: Jai
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Prakash
authors.forename: Ze
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.forename: Matthew S
authors.initials: MS
authors.lastname: Mills
authors.forename: Nikolaos K
authors.initials: NK
authors.lastname: Efremidis
authors.forename: Demetrios N
authors.initials: DN
authors.lastname: Christodoulides
authors.forename: Zhigang
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Chen