Observation of microsphere movement driven by optical pulse.

A laser beam was coupled into a tapered optical fiber tip with a diameter of about 2.6 μm, and a 46 μm diameter microsphere was propelled by the outgoing optical pulse. With the change of pulse energy from 1.35 to 7.22 μJ, the calculated average velocity of the driven microsphere varied from 0.38 to 10.68 cm/s. The scanning electron microscope images of the fiber tip show that there is no thermal damage during the experiment.