Controlled optical lensing in ferrofluids
Abstract
The use of a ferrofluid layer as an optical lens for a a laser beam is investigated. The beam was found to diverge proportional to an increase of incident power. Upon the application of an external magnetic field that is oppositely directed to the propagation of the incident light, the divergence decreases with increasing magnitude of the magnetic field, indicating that the light is focused. The results show the feasibility of using ferrofluids as a controllable magnetic lens.