We demonstrate a new principle of optical trapping and manipulation increasing more than 1000 times the manipulation distance by harnessing strong thermal forces while suppressing their stochastic nature with optical vortex beams. Our approach expands optical manipulation of particles into a gas media and provides a full control over trapped particles, including the optical transport and pinpoint positioning of $\sim${}100\,\,$\mu${}m objects over a meter-scale distance with \ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}10\,\,$\mu${}m accuracy.

We utilize the interaction of tightly focused ultrashort pulses with transparent media to imprint their local polarization in the focal region. In particular, we demonstrate that this technique allows for a subwavelength resolution diagnostic of complex polarization states including the presence of the longitudinal component of the electric field. Moreover, we demonstrate the first ever material ablation with the longitudinal electric field of femtosecond pulses.

In this Letter we present the first (to our knowledge) demonstration of material modification using tightly focused single femtosecond laser vortex pulses. Double-charge femtosecond vortices were synthesized with a polarization-singularity beam converter based on light propagation in a uniaxial anisotropic medium and then focused using moderate- and high-NA optics (viz., $\mathrm{NA}=0.45$ and 0.9) to ablate fused silica and soda-lime glass. By controlling the pulse energy, we consistently machine micrometer-size ring-shaped structures with $<100\mathrm{nm}$ uniform groove thickness.

Optics InfoBase is the Optical Society's online library for flagship journals, partnered and copublished journals, and recent proceedings from OSA conferences.

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.