Optical forces experienced by arbitrary-sized spherical scatterers from superpositions of equal-frequency Bessel beams

Radiation pressure cross sections over arbitrary-sized spherical scatterers are evaluated considering, as wave fields, recently developed frozen waves, which are a suitable superposition of equal-frequency Bessel beams, of arbitrary order. The so-called beam-shape coefficients are computed within the framework of the generalized Lorenz-Mie theory and with the aid of integral localized approximation. It is numerically shown that, under the paraxial regime, frozen waves could be designed to efficiently trap biological cells, viruses, bacteria, and so on, along multiple radial planes and at specific axial locations. Our results reinforce frozen waves as potential laser beams in optical trapping and manipulation. (C) 2015 Optical Society of America