Optical manipulation of CuCl nanoparticles under an excitonic resonance condition in superfluid helium

In order to prepare the optimal condition for the resonant optical manipulation, a lot of CuCl particles with a broad size-distribution ranging from 10 nm to 10 mu m have been directly fabricated from a bulk sample by laser ablation in superfluid helium. We irradiated these particles with the laser light covering the excitonic resonance levels of particles smaller than 100 nm in order to transport them onto a target silicon substrate by using resonant radiation force. As a result, we have observed that many particles of from 10 to 50 nm diameters adhere to the substrate. This means that these nanoparticles are transported by the resonant radiation force much stronger than the gravitational force. (c) 2006 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.