Rotation of liquid crystal microdroplets in the intensity minima of an optical vortex beam.

An optical vortex is characterized by its donut-shaped intensity distribution and helical phase structure. In this study, we demonstrate that an optical vortex beam, generated by a spatial light modulator, can trap, circulate, and rotate liquid crystal microdroplets of various sizes at different positions within the beam. Our findings indicate that larger microdroplets are trapped at intensity minima without altering their internal liquid crystal orientation, which is fluid by nature, and the rotation of microdroplets were observed.