Photophoretic manipulation of absorbing aerosol particles with vortex beams: theory versus experiment

We develop a theoretical approach for describing the optical trapping and manipulation of carbon nanoclusters in air with a dual-vortex optical trap, as realized recently in experiment [V. Shvedov et al., Opt. Express 17, 5743 ( 2009)]. We calculate both longitudinal and transverse photophoretic forces acting on a spherical absorbing particle, and then compare our theoretical predictions with the experimental data. (C) 2009 Optical Society of America