Optical Bottle Shaping Using Axicons with Amplitude or Phase Apodization

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

1. The authors use optical bottle beams for the particle manipulation. There are many other methods proposed to generate optical trap, such as Gaussian hollow beam, Optical vortices, and these methods have been wildly used. Therefore, authors could view the relative materials and by comparison, improve the advantages of this method.

2. In figure 6, it shows the results of the light bottles illuminated by different optical beams. It could be found that the surrounded intensity of the trap is not very strong, so it is better that the authors provide some details to illustrate the targeted particles are not attracted or pushed by other part of light. In addition, in figure 8, it has the same problems.

3. In experiment process, authors use the designed axicon to generate a set of optical bottle beams, in figure 9, it could be better to illustrate the effect of the background of the light.

Author Response

We are thankful to reviewers for their useful comments and suggestions, which allow us to improve the quality of the manuscript making it more clear for readers. We believe the corrections made address the Reviewer’s concerns making the manuscript suitable for publication in the journal.

All changes in the manuscript are highlighted by green color.

Reviewer 1

1. The authors use optical bottle beams for the particle manipulation. There are many other methods proposed to generate optical trap, such as Gaussian hollow beam, Optical vortices, and these methods have been wildly used. Therefore, authors could view the relative materials and by comparison, improve the advantages of this method.

Reply:

We added new information on the generation of optical bottle beams to the Introduction section. The features (both advantages and disadvantages) of the mentioned techniques were noticed.

In addition, as it was mentioned in the text “the most considered approaches are focused on the formation of single optical bottle beams”. In this paper, we consider an easy-to-implement approach for the formation and control of a set of optical bottle beams on the optical axis.

This approach can be implemented by applying amplitude or phase apodization of the fabricated axicon, or using a spatial light modulator to generate the calculated phase function.   

We can control not only the number of traps formed but also their relative position, which is important for solving problems of optical manipulation. This was mentioned in the Introduction and Conclusion sections.

2. In figure 6, it shows the results of the light bottles illuminated by different optical beams. It could be found that the surrounded intensity of the trap is not very strong, so it is better that the authors provide some details to illustrate the targeted particles are not attracted or pushed by other part of light. In addition, in figure 8, it has the same problems.

Reply:

We added an image (see Fig. 10(d)) demonstrating the particle trapped in this optical bottle. It is seen that the particle is trapped in the central intensity minimum, which is surrounded by the first light ring. That means that the targeted particles are not attracted or pushed by other part of light.

3. In experiment process, authors use the designed axicon to generate a set of optical bottle beams, in figure 9, it could be better to illustrate the effect of the background of the light.

Reply:

We added an image of one of the trapped particles and the corresponding Visualization 2 demonstrating the trapping process in the transverse plane.

Reviewer 2 Report

Dear Authors!

 I think that the paper is interesting and actual. The strong point of the material is comparison of theoretical and experimental results with data obtained numerically. I propose to the authors to read it one more and try to improve the grammar. After slight changes of style and syntax the paper can be published

Author Response

We are thankful to reviewers for their useful comments and suggestions, which allow us to improve the quality of the manuscript making it more clear for readers. We believe the corrections made address the Reviewer’s concerns making the manuscript suitable for publication in the journal.

All changes in the manuscript are highlighted by green color.

Reviewer 2

I think that the paper is interesting and actual. The strong point of the material is comparison of theoretical and experimental results with data obtained numerically. I propose to the authors to read it one more and try to improve the grammar. After slight changes of style and syntax the paper can be published

Reply:

We thank the Reviewer for the positive evaluation of our work.

We have improved the grammar and changed syntax to make text more clear.

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

We are thankful to reviewers for their useful comments and suggestions, which allow us to improve the quality of the manuscript making it more clear for readers. We believe the corrections made address the Reviewer’s concerns making the manuscript suitable for publication in the journal.

All changes in the manuscript are highlighted by green color.

Reviewer 3

I have reviewed the article entitled «Optical bottle shaping using axicons with glitches». The paper considers an approach to generate an optical trap with a minimum intensity distribution at the center. The article does not raise questions about the quality of its writing, but there are some
comments:

1. I think that is not quite the correct title of the work. I recommend the authors to replace
   "with glitches" with another expression.

Reply:

Thanks for the suggestion. We have changed the title to make it more clear:

“Optical bottle shaping using axicons with amplitude or phase apodization”

2. In my opinion, in the «Introduction» section, at the very beginning, there are not enough
   leading and motivational sentences. They should talk about the popularity of optical tweezers, and where they are used and what benefits they bring. And only then talk about the importance of highquality capture of particles, atoms, etc.

Reply:

We added new information to the Introduction section.

3. On lines 27-28, the authors argue that the use of Gaussian beams to work with such particles
   [6-8] is not effective. But in the works cited, Gaussian beams are used. Could the authors clarify
   this point? and, if necessary, correct this statement, or confirm it with references to the «References»

Reply:

Thank you for this remark, we have corrected the statement so that there is no misunderstanding.

4. In my opinion, lines 39-46 are not appropriate in this article. Since the work does not talk
   about the formation of 3D distributions, and the work does not use DOE in its usual form. But if
   the authors believe that it is necessary, then: in lines 39-41, the authors of the article say that it is
   possible to form a 3D distribution using diffractive-optical elements. In general, the statement is
   correct. But the authors themselves provide a link to the article [15], where a holographic element is used. Then the question arises what is meant by DOE? I ask the authors to clarify this point.

Reply:

Thank you. By the DOE we mean a wide class of computer-generated elements.

However, since there are different features between different types of such elements (holographic or diffractive), we have corrected the phrase.

5. In lines 47-51, the authors state that the most optimal tandem is the use of an axicon + lens.
   But it's not obvious from the references given. In addition, the combination of lens + axicon is not used in the work. I would like the authors to either justify the need for this paragraph, or remove it.

Reply:

You're right. This approach is not used in this work.

However, following the request of the reviewers to expand the Introduction for various tweezers, we decided to leave information about this approach. We have corrected this paragraph and added a comment about the shortcomings of the method.

6. General comment: We use a combination of an aperture diaphragm and a diffractive
   axicon. But this issue is not addressed in the «Introduction». In particular, the authors should
   consider the issues related to the methods of synthesis of precisely diffractive axicons and their
   applicability in optical tweezers. Works in which a similar combination of elements (axicon +
   diaphragm) was already used, and point out the difference between methods and approaches, as
   well as advantages and disadvantages. It is also necessary to consider the methods and approaches that can be used to obtain the effect considered in this paper and to make a comparison. The authors should expand the list of «References» used:
   1. Florian O. Fahrbach and Alexander Rohrbach, "A line scanned light-sheet microscope with
   phase shaped self-reconstructing beams," Opt. Express 18, 24229-24244 (2010)
   2. Chang, BJ., Kittisopikul, M., Dean, K.M. et al. Universal light-sheet generation with field
   synthesis. Nat Methods 16, 235–238 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41592-019-0327-9
   3. Sergey Gorelick, David M. Paganin, Denis Korneev, and Alex de Marco, "Hybrid
   refractive-diffractive axicons for Bessel-beam multiplexing and resolution improvement," Opt.
   Express 28, 12174-12188 (2020)
   4. Stsepuro, N.; Nosov, P.; Galkin, M.; Krasin, G.; Kovalev, M.; Kudryashov, S. Generating
   Bessel-Gaussian Beams with Controlled Axial Intensity Distribution. Appl. Sci. 2020, 10, 7911.
   https://doi.org/10.3390/app10217911
   5. Tobias Meinert and Alexander Rohrbach, "Light-sheet microscopy with length-adaptive
   Bessel beams," Biomed. Opt. Express 10, 670-681 (2019)
   6. Juan A. Monsoriu, Walter D. Furlan, Pedro Andrés, and Jesus Lancis, "Fractal conical
   lenses," Opt. Express 14, 9077-9082 (2006)
   7. George K. Krasin, Maxim A. Vinogradov, Michael S. Kovalev, and Pavel A. Nosov
   "Investigation of parameters of the Bessel beam formed by an axicon", Proc. SPIE 11028, Optical Sensors 2019, 110281Q (11 April 2019); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2520736

Reply:

We are grateful to the Reviewer for references of useful works, which we have carefully studied. Indeed, some of them contain interesting information about the application of axicon apodization. We have added a large text in the Introduction, which discusses the features of the methods considered in the proposed papers.

However, these works did not investigate the formation of a set of axial optical bottles.

In this paper, we solve this problem using a simple approach based on the amplitude or phase apodization of a conventional axicon and investigate the effectiveness of various types of apodization.

Round 2

Reviewer 3 Report

Good job!