Optical vortex array with deformable hybrid Ferris structures

Abstract We proposed an optical vortex array (OVA) with deformable hybrid Ferris structures (DH-OVA). The DH-OVA was generated via the coaxial coherent superposition of two grafted elliptic perfect optical vortices (OVs) with different topological charges (TCs). The proposed DH-OVA exhibited the capacity of a free transformation from a circle to an ellipse except for the modulation of the number and sign of the unit OVs on the array. The OV distribution obeys the rule of uniform distribution of the area on the upper or lower half. By adjusting the initial phase difference, the orientation factor, and the direction of the grafted axis, a more complex OV motion and the entire hybrid rotation of the DH-OVA can be easily conducted according to the desired application. For instance, for the unidirectional and bidirectional motions of the OVs, regardless of whether they possessed the same or opposite signs, the entire rotation contained the unit OV’s motion. During the OV’s motion, the number of dark cores was not conserved, whereas the total TCs of the OVs were conserved on the DH-OVA. Results contrasted with the conventional wisdom on OVAs. Furthermore, the bidirectional motion of yeast particles via the DH-OVA was executed experimentally. This work provided a flexible DH-OVA, which will result in new potential applications in particle transfer, polarity particle sorting, and micro-particle manipulation.