Stability and dynamics of self-arranged structures in longitudinal optical binding

We explore theoretically and experimentally the first creation of extended longitudinally optically bound chains of microparticles in one dimension. We use the geometry of two counter-propagating "non-diffracting" light fields, so termed Bessel beams. Such beams suppressed the influence of the axial intensity profiles of the illuminating beams on the self-organisation process which then depended critically upon the inter-beads interactions. Beam homogeneity and extended propagation allowed the creation of 200μm long chains of organised micro-particles and the first observation of multi-stability: short range multistability within a single chain and a long-range multi-stability between several distinct chains. Our observations are supported by theoretical results of the coupled dipole method.

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