Related papers: Negative Optical Torque
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…
Manipulating mega biomolecules and micro-devices with light is highly appealing. Opto driving torque can propel micro-rotors to translational motion in viscous liquid, and then separate microsystems according to their handedness. We study…
The momentum and radiation pressure of light in negative-index metamaterials (NIMs) are commonly expected to reverse their direction from what is observed for normal materials. The negative refraction and inverse Doppler effect of light in…
We demonstrate that light is subject to anomalous (i.e., negative) diffraction when propagating in the presence of hyperbolic dispersion. We show that light propagation in hyperbolic media resembles the dynamics of a quantum particle of…
We study the interaction of a light beams carrying angular momentum with a single, trapped and well localized ion. We provide a detailed calculation of selection rules and excitation probabilities for quadrupole transitions. The results…
Light carries energy, and therefore, it is the source of a gravitational field. The gravitational field of a beam of light in the short wavelength approximation has been studied by several authors. In this article, we consider light of…
The recoil optical force and torque acting on an electromagnetic dipole are typically derived by computing the imbalance in radiated linear and angular electromagnetic momentum coming from the source, using Maxwell stress tensor…
We investigate the radiation of optical angular momentum by a dipole gas under uniform magnetic field with an unpolarized source at its center. Conservation of angular momentum implies that the radiation of angular momentum results in a…
Recent studies show that the angular momentum, both spin and orbital, of rotating light beams possesses counter-intuitive characteristics. We present a new approach to the question of orbital angular momentum of light based on the complex…
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…
It has been known for a long time that light carries both linear and angular momenta parallel to the direction of propagation. However, only recently it has been pointed out that beams of light, under certain conditions, may exhibit a…
Nanostructured dielectric metasurfaces offer unprecedented opportunities to control light-matter momentum exchange, and thereby the forces and torques that light can exert on matter. Here we introduce optical metasurfaces as components of…
We consider the lateral shift of a light beam reflecting from a dielectric slab backed by a metal. It is found that the lateral shift of the reflected beam can be negative while the intensity of reflected beam is almost equal to the…
We develop a semiclassical theory to describe the photon momenta in left-handed materials (LHMs). A single two-level atom is introduced as an "explorer" to probe the momenta of photons. We demonstrate that the linear momentum of the photons…
Laguerre-Gaussian (LG) beam has orbital angular momentum (OAM). A particle trapped in an LG beam will rotate about the beam axis, due to the transfer of OAM. The rotation of the particle is usually in the same direction as that of the beam…
The spin angular momentum in an elliptically polarized beam of light plays several noteworthy roles in optical traps. It contributes to the linear momentum density in a non-uniform beam, and thus to the radiation pressure exerted on…
When a relativistic laser pulse with high photon density interacts with a specially tailored thin foil target, a strong torque is exerted on the resulting spiral-shaped foil plasma, or light fan. Because of its structure, the latter can…
Twisted light fields carrying orbital angular momentum (OAM) provide powerful capabilities for applications in optical communications, microscopy, quantum optics and microparticle rotation. Here we introduce and experimentally validate a…
We develop the quantum theory of transverse angular momentum of light beams. The theory applies to paraxial and quasi-paraxial photon beams in vacuum, and reproduces the known results for classical beams when applied to coherent states of…
The partial reflection of an electromagnetic (EM) wave from a medium leads to absorption of momentum in the direction perpendicular to the surface (the standard radiation pressure) {and, for oblique incidence on a partially reflecting…