Generation of auto-focusing circular Pearcey Swallowtail tornado beams and their application to particle manipulation

Abstract Optically chiral tornado beams, characterized by their torsion and shrinkage properties in both radial and angular dimensions, show significant potential for studying and applying their interactions with matter. This research generates a novel auto-focusing tornado beam by superimposing a circular Pearcey beam and a circular Swallowtail beam. By tuning the beam parameters, we achieve diverse tornado morphologies and focal spot distributions, and explore the key parameters that influence the beam’s rotation. Furthermore, we investigate the beam’s optical chirality density and the gradient force distribution for capturing Rayleigh particles, and theoretically verify their potential applications in the fields of interaction with chiral matter and particle capture. Finally, the ability of the generated beams to capture micrometre-scale particles is confirmed through experimental verification.