Optical forces arising from phase gradients
Soft Condensed Matter
2009-11-13 v1 Disordered Systems and Neural Networks
Optics
Abstract
We demonstrate both theoretically and experimentally that gradients in the phase of a light field exert forces on illuminated objects, including forces transverse to the direction of propagation. This effect generalizes the notion of the photon orbital angular momentum carried by helical beams of light. We further demonstrate that these forces generally violate conservation of energy, and briefly discuss some ramifications of their non-conservativity.
Cite
@article{arxiv.cond-mat/0703543,
title = {Optical forces arising from phase gradients},
author = {Yohai Roichman and Bo Sun and Yael Roichman and Jesse Amato-Grill and David G. Grier},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:cond-mat/0703543},
year = {2009}
}
Comments
6 pages, 4 figures