Figure 6. Micrograph of 3 μm polystyrene particle propulsion under.

(a) FM and (b) HOMs propagation. In both cases the waist power was 25 mW. Table 1 gives the speed of a 3 μm particle at a fixed waist power of 25 mW obtained experimentally and by three different theoretical methods. The experimental results confirm that, under identical powers at the microfibre waist, the particle speed is approximately 8 times faster under LP₁₁ mode set propagation than in the LP₀₁ case. Such an increase in speed is indicative of the stronger evanescent field and larger field extension of the HOMs.