Related papers: Backward Pulling Force from a Forward Propagating …
Light can exert radiation pressure on any object it encounters and that resulting optical force can be used to manipulate particles. It is commonly assumed that light should move a particle forward and indeed an incident plane wave with a…
Laser has become a powerful tool to manipulate micro-particles and atoms by radiation pressure force or photophoretic force, but optical manipulation is less noticeable for large objects. Optically-induced negative forces have been proposed…
Optical forces allow manipulation of small particles and control of nanophotonic structures with light beams. Here, we describe a counter-intuitive lateral optical force acting on particles placed above a substrate, under uniform plane wave…
Usually a light beam pushes a particle when the photons act upon it. This is due to that the electric-dipole particle in the paraxial beam is considered. We investigate the scattering forces in non-paraxial gradientless beams and find that…
Twisted photons (i.e. photons carrying non-zero orbital angular momentum) are well-known in optics. Recently, it was suggested to use Compton backscattering off an ultra-relativistic electron beam to boost optical twisted photons into the…
We theoretically investigate the optical force exerted on an isotropic particle illuminated by a superposition of plane waves. We derive explicit analytical expressions for the exerted force up to quadrupolar polarizabilities. Based on…
Backflow is the phenomenon that the probability current of a quantum particle on the line can flow in the direction opposite to its momentum. In this article, previous investigations of backflow, pertaining to interaction-free dynamics or…
Optical pulling forces or tractor beams can pull particles against light propagation by redirecting the incident photons forward. This is typically achieved using Bessel beams with very small half-cone angles, which considerably limits its…
A momentum of the photon in a surface plasmon could be hundreds and even thousand times higher as compared to a momentum of a photon in a free space. Such a photon could be scattered on an electron the later being supplied by a notable…
Optically-induced mechanical torque leading to the rotation of small objects requires the presence of absorption or breaking cylindrical symmetry of a scatterer. A spherical non-absorbing particle cannot rotate due to the conservation of…
Backflow is a counter-intuitive phenomenon in which a forward propagating quantum particle propagates locally backwards. The actual counter-propagation property associated with this delicate interference phenomenon has not been observed to…
Maxwell noted that light carries angular momentum, and as such it can exert torques on material objects. This was subsequently proved by Beth in 1936. Applications of these opto-mechanical effects were limited initially due to their…
Like many other physical quantities, the optical force can be expanded using multipole expansion, which has been done in [Nat. Photon. 5, 531], up to electric octupole order. However, in that study, the existence of radiation multipoles…
Photons carrying non-zero orbital angular momentum (twisted photons) are well-known in optics. Recently, it was suggested to use Compton backscattering to boost optical twisted photons to high energies. Twisted electrons in the intermediate…
Photophoretic force due to the optically-induced thermal effect provides an effective way to manipulate the light-absorbing particles suspended in ambient gases. However, how this force temporally responds to the intensity modulation of the…
Understanding the momentum of light when propagating through optical media is not only fundamental for studies as varied as classical electrodynamics and polaritonics in condensed matter physics, but also for important applications such as…
Structured beams of light can move small objects in surprising ways. Particularly striking examples include observations of polarization-dependent forces acting on optically isotropic objects and tractor beams that can pull objects opposite…
Humans will launch spacecraft that travel at an appreciable fraction of the speed of light. Spacecraft traffic will be tracked by radar. Scattering of pulsed electromagnetic fields by an object in uniform translational motion at…
Optical scattering force is used to reduce the loading time of single atoms to a cavity mode. Releasing a cold atomic ensemble above the resonator, we apply a push beam along the direction of gravity, offering fast atomic transport with…
Optical fibers confine and guide light almost unattenuated and thus convey light forces to polarizable nano-particles over very long distances. Radiation pressure forces arise from scattering of guided photons into free space while gradient…