A method to determine radiation torque on a dielectric microrotor driven by a focused laser beam, while considering the wave nature of the incident light, is introduced. The method involves numerically determining the electric and magnetic field quantities of the scattered light on the surface of the rotor using the finite difference time domain method. Maxwell’s stress tensor is then employed to calculate the force over the rotor surface, enabling the determination of the rotor torque about the axis of rotation. The method is demonstrated using a simple rotor shape, with results that are in good qualitative agreement with observations reported in literature.
he served as a senior electrical engineer, then as an engineering manager. He is currently an Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering at Western Kentucky University in Bowling Green. His research interests involve computational electromagnetics, application of electromagnetics to the analysis and design of electromechanical devices, and photonics.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.