Related papers: Lateral Optical Force On Chiral Particles Near a S…
Right- and left-handed circularly polarized light interact differently with electronic charges in chiral materials. This asymmetry generates the natural circular dichroism and gyrotropy, also known as the optical activity. Here we…
Angular momentum and torque are important principles for basic and applied physics on any spatial scales, for example, in elementary particles, cold gases, optical tweezers, quantum information technology, metamaterials, gyroscopes or…
Van der Waals forces between atoms and molecules are universally assumed to act along the line separating them. Inspired by recent works on effects which can propel atoms parallel to a macroscopic surface via the Casimir--Polder force, we…
The inverse Faraday effect is a magneto-optical process allowing the magnetization of matter by an optical excitation carrying a non-zero spin or orbital moment of light. This phenomenon was considered until now as symmetric; right or left…
Light-induced rotation of absorbing microscopic particles by transfer of angular momentum from light to the material raises the possibility of optically driven micromachines. The phenomenon has been observed using elliptically polarized…
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…
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…
In order to make plausible the idea that light exerts a pressure on matter, some introductory physics texts consider the force exerted by an electromagnetic wave on an electron. The argument as presented is both mathematically incorrect and…
We derive the lateral Casimir-Polder force on a ground state atom on top of a corrugated surface, up to first order in the corrugation amplitude. Our calculation is based on the scattering approach, which takes into account nonspecular…
It has been long recognized that the spatial polarization of the electronic clouds in molecules, and the spatial arrangements of atoms into chiral molecular structures, play crucial roles in physics, chemistry and biology. However, these…
Matter manipulation with optical forces has become commonplace in a wide range of research fields and is epitomized by the optical trap. Calculations of optical forces on small illuminated particles typically neglect multiple scattering on…
We put forward a theory on the optical force exerted upon a dipolar particle by a stationary and ergodic partially coherent light field. We show through a rigorous analysis that the ensemble averaged electromagnetic force is given in terms…
It is reported that when a light beam travels through a slab of left-handed medium in the air, the lateral shift of the transmitted beam can be negative as well as positive. The necessary condition for the lateral shift to be positive is…
Evanescent electromagnetic waves possess spin-momentum locking, where the direction of propagation (momentum) is locked to the inherent polarization of the wave (transverse spin). We study the optical forces arising from this universal…
Light is one of the most powerful and precise tools allowing us to control, shape and create new phases of matter. In this task, the magnetic component of a light wave has so far played a unique role in defining the wave's helicity, but its…
Optical forces acting on nano-sized particles are typically too small to be useful for particle manipulation. We theoretically and numerically demonstrate a mechanism that can significantly enhance the optical force acting on a small…
Light carries momentum and, upon interaction with material structures, can exert forces on them. Here, we show that a planar structure with asymmetric optical response is spontaneously accelerated when placed in an environment at a…
We present a method to measure the optical torque applied to particles of arbitrary shape held in an optical trap, inferred from the change of angular momentum of light induced by the particle. All torque components can be determined from a…
From long time transverse and longitudinal optical forces are used for non-contact and noninvasive manipulation of small particle. The following question arises: What is the impact of these forces on the continuous media as air and silica.…
We report the first study on the optical force exerted by an evanescent wave on a small sphere with both electric and magnetic response to the incident field, immersed in an arbitrary nondissipative medium. New expressions and effects from…