Observation of three-dimensional optical stacking of microparticles using a single Laguerre–Gaussian beam

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Abstract
Optical stacking of microparticles has been demonstrated earlier using a single focused Gaussian beam, multiple beams from Laguerre–Gaussian (LG) interference patterns, and Bessel beams. In this letter, we demonstrate that a single focused LG beam has the ability to optically stack multiple high-index microparticles around the intensity annular rings of the LG beam, and thus form a three-dimensional structure. Due to the symmetrically circular shape of the LG, we have been able to stack particles in a circular manner. Hence we propose that this technique of stacking can be extended to optical fields of designed shaped such that the stacking microparticles will be organized according to the shaped of the beam intensity. This is an alternative method to obtain a desired three-dimensional crystalline structure, where shaping the optical vortices beam is used instead of using multiple beams.