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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…

Fluid Dynamics · Physics 2018-09-05 Yiwen Tang , Zhibing Li

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…

Inspired by a sea creature, we identify a robust chiral optical force that pushes the opposite enantiomers of a chiral molecule towards regions of orthogonal linear polarization in an optical field via electric dipole interactions. Our…

Orbital angular momentum (OAM) carried by helical light beams is an unbounded degree of freedom of photons that offers a promising playground in modern photonics. So far, integrated sources of coherent light carrying OAM are based on…

We present a result derived from the optical chirality continuity equation that shows the existence of a source term describing optical chirality generation through the interactions of the magnetic induction field with a source current,…

Optics · Physics 2025-08-26 Zaid Haddadin , Lukas Novotny , Lisa V. Poulikakos

The reflection of an optical wave from a metal, arising from strong interactions between the optical electric field and the free carriers of the metal, is accompanied by a phase reversal of the reflected electric field. A far less common…

Structural chirality can induce counter-intuitive optical forces due to inherent symmetry properties. While optical forces on a single chiral particle in the Rayleigh regime have been well studied, optical forces in coupled chiral particles…

Optics · Physics 2020-11-04 Kah Jen Wo , Jie Peng , Madhava Krishna Prasad , Yuzhi Shi , Jensen Li , Shubo Wang

Electron transmission through chiral molecules induced by circularly polarized light can be very different for mirror-image structures, a peculiar fact given that the electronic energy spectra of the systems are identical. We propose that…

Chemical Physics · Physics 2009-11-13 Spiros S. Skourtis , David N. Beratan , Ron Naaman , Abraham Nitzan , David H. Waldeck

Optical trapping describes the interaction between light and matter to manipulate micro-objects through momentum transfer. In the case of 3D trapping with a single beam, this is termed optical tweezers. Optical tweezers are a powerful and…

Recently, Tang and Cohen (Science 332, 333, 2011) have demonstrated a scheme to enhance the chiral response of molecules, which relies on the use of circularly polarized light in a standing wave configuration. Here we show a new type of…

Chirality is a concept that one object is not superimposable on its mirror image by translation and rotation. In particular, chiral plasmonics have been widely investigated due to their excellent optical chiral properties, and have led to…

Optics · Physics 2023-07-18 Yuqing Cheng , Mengtao Sun

Materials of which the optical response is determined by their structure are of much interest both for their fundamental properties and applications. Examples range from simple gratings to photonic crystals. Obtaining control over the…

The spin-orbit interaction in a focused-reflected beam of light results in spatially non-uniform polarization in the beam cross-section due to the superposition of orthogonal field components and polarization-dependent interface reflection…

Optics · Physics 2024-10-02 Upasana Baishya , Nirmal K. Viswanathan

Here, we present an exploratory study of the potential applications of electrically biased materials that possess a nonreciprocal and non-Hermitian electromagnetic response analogous to the electronic response of field-effect transistors.…

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…

The capability to distinguish the handedness of circularly polarized light is a well-known intrinsic property of a chiral nanostructure. It is a long-standing controversial debate, however, whether a chiral object can also sense the…

Owing to the ubiquity and easy-to-shape property of optical intensity, the intensity gradient force of light has been most spectacularly exploited in optical manipulation of small particles. Manifesting the intensity gradient as an optical…

Optical beams with a new and distinctive type of helicity have become the subject of much recent interest. While circularly polarised light comprises photons with spin angular momentum, these optically engineered 'twisted beams' (optical…

Optics · Physics 2015-06-26 David L. Andrews , Luciana C. Davila Romero , Mohamed Babiker

Dielectric mirrors comprising thin-film multilayers are widely used in optical experiments because they can achieve substantially higher reflectance compared to metal mirrors. Here we investigate potential problems that can arise when…

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…

Soft Condensed Matter · Physics 2015-06-03 David B. Ruffner , David G. Grier