English

Mie scattering and optical forces from evanescent fields: A complex-angle approach

Optics 2013-12-13 v3

Abstract

Mie theory is one of the main tools describing scattering of propagating electromagnetic waves by spherical particles. Evanescent optical fields are also scattered by particles and exert radiation forces which can be used for optical near-field manipulations. We show that the Mie theory can be naturally adopted for the scattering of evanescent waves via rotation of its standard solutions by a complex angle. This offers a simple and powerful tool for calculations of the scattered fields and radiation forces. Comparison with other, more cumbersome, approaches shows perfect agreement, thereby validating our theory. As examples of its application, we calculate angular distributions of the scattered far-field irradiance and radiation forces acting on dielectric and conducting particles immersed in an evanescent field.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1210.0654,
  title  = {Mie scattering and optical forces from evanescent fields: A complex-angle approach},
  author = {Aleksandr Y. Bekshaev and Konstantin Y. Bliokh and Franco Nori},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1210.0654},
  year   = {2013}
}

Comments

13 pages, 5 figures. To appear in Opt. Express

R2 v1 2026-06-21T22:14:27.301Z