Laser microfabrication and rotation of ship-in-a-bottle optical rotators

We have fabricated optical rotators inside a silica substrate and rotated them by a laser trapping technique. The fabrication method used was femtosecond laser-assisted etching, i.e., modification of the host material by irradiation with femtosecond laser pulses along a predesigned pattern, followed by selective chemical etching. The rotators, which consist of the same material as the substrate, can move inside the microcavity but cannot get out. The rotation speed was proportional to the trapping laser power, and the maximum achieved was about 100 rpm. Such rotators will be applicable to micro-total-analysis systems and microfluidics. (c) 2008 American Institute of Physics.