Optical pulling force

Chen, Jun; Ng, Jack; Lin, Zhifang; Chan, Che Ting

doi:10.1038/nphoton.2011.153

Cited by 613 publications

(559 citation statements)

References 28 publications

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“…[2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13] Generally speaking, a tractor beam is a customized light beam that exerts a negative scattering force (NSF) on a scatterer and pulls it opposite to the propagation direction of the light, in contrast to conventional pushing forces. 14 Optical pulling forces provide a novel approach to gradientless optical manipulation techniques distinct from optical tweezers, [15][16][17] optical conveyors 13,18,19 and nanooptomechanical systems.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Photon momentum transfer in inhomogeneous dielectric mixtures and induced tractor beams

et al. 2015

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The determination of optical force as a consequence of momentum transfer is inevitably subject to the use of the proper momentum density and stress tensor. It is imperative and valuable to consider the intrinsic scheme of photon momentum transfer, particularly when a particle is embedded in a complex dielectric environment. Typically, we consider a particle submerged in an inhomogeneous background composed of different dielectric materials, excluding coherent illumination or hydrodynamic effects. A ray-tracing method is adopted to capture the direct process of momentum transfer from the complex background medium, and this approach is validated using the modified Einstein-Laub method, which uses only the interior fields of the particle in the calculation. In this way, debates regarding the calculation of the force with different stress tensors using exterior fields can be avoided. Our suggested interpretation supports only the Minkowski approach for the optical momentum transfer to the embedded scatterer while rejecting Peierls's and Abraham's approaches, though the momentum of a stably moving photon in a continuous background medium should be considered to be of the Abraham type. Our interpretation also provides a novel method of realizing a tractor beam for the exertion of negative force that offers an alternative to the use of negative-index materials, optical gain, or highly non-paraxial or multiple-light interference. Keywords: dielectric interface; Minkowski photon momentum transfer; modified Einstein-Laub method; optical pulling force; optical tractor beams INTRODUCTIONFollowing the pioneering work of Marston 1 in acoustics, optical 'tractor beams' have attracted considerable interest by virtue of their unusual mechanism for micromanipulation. [2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13] Generally speaking, a tractor beam is a customized light beam that exerts a negative scattering force (NSF) on a scatterer and pulls it opposite to the propagation direction of the light, in contrast to conventional pushing forces. 14 Optical pulling forces provide a novel approach to gradientless optical manipulation techniques distinct from optical tweezers, 15-17 optical conveyors 13,18,19 and nanooptomechanical systems. 20,21 Recently, various types of tractor beams have been experimentally demonstrated using a Gaussian beam with an optical mirror (involving the interference of incident and reflected light beams in certain limited regions) 8 and using dodecane droplets sitting on a dielectric interface. 22 However, in the presence of a high-powered laser, hydrodynamic effects (uneven heat dissipation, particle absorption, temperature gradients, liquid convection, surface energy wells, etc.) may also contribute. Moreover, the stability criteria for tractor beams, which are very important for practical application, have not yet been investigated.Although the mechanical effect has been demonstrated 22 to be an overall consequence of all possible contributing factors, the mechanism of the optical momentum transfer from a mixe...

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Photon momentum transfer in inhomogeneous dielectric mixtures and induced tractor beams

et al. 2015

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“…The scattering anisotropy also has a key role in the mechanical action of electromagnetic fields on small particles. The radiation pressure, which until now was believed to push objects 32,33 , has recently been designed to exert a pulling action towards the source, as recently proposed on exciting the induced magnetic dipole or multipoles of the particle 34,35 , and by appropriately designing the illuminating wave-field angular spectrum 36 .…”

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confidence: 99%

Magnetic and electric coherence in forward- and back-scattered electromagnetic waves by a single dielectric subwavelength sphere

et al. 2012

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Magnetodielectric small spheres present unusual electromagnetic scattering features, theoretically predicted a few decades ago. However, achieving such behaviour has remained elusive, due to the non-magnetic character of natural optical materials or the difficulty in obtaining low-loss highly permeable magnetic materials in the gigahertz regime. Here we present unambiguous experimental evidence that a single low-loss dielectric subwavelength sphere of moderate refractive index (n ¼ 4 like some semiconductors at near-infrared) radiates fields identical to those from equal amplitude crossed electric and magnetic dipoles, and indistinguishable from those of ideal magnetodielectric spheres. The measured scattering radiation patterns and degree of linear polarization (3-9 GHz/33-100 mm range) show that, by appropriately tuning the a/l ratio, zero-backward ('Huygens' source) or almost zeroforward ('Huygens' reflector) radiated power can be obtained. These Kerker scattering conditions only depend on a/l. Our results open new technological challenges from nanoand micro-photonics to science and engineering of antennas, metamaterials and electromagnetic devices.

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“…A necessary condition for realizing an optical tractor beam is that α e and α m should be similar [8,9,20,21]. In this case, the potential is identical to a two-dimensional harmonic oscillator.…”

Section: Optical Forces Exerted By Bessel Beamsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…These beams usually exert a positive radiation pressure on an object, which pushes particles away from the source. However, it was recently shown that a net pulling force can be generated if the beam is sufficiently nonparaxial [7][8][9]. To date, many different methods of generating these so-called 'tractor beams' have been proposed [10].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Generating stable tractor beams with dielectric metasurfaces

Pfeiffer

Grbic

2015

Phys. Rev. B

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Propagation invariant beams that pull objects towards a light source are commonly known as tractor beams. Here, an efficient linearly polarized tractor beam with improved stability is introduced. The beam consists of a superposition of TE and TM polarized Bessel beams of orders m = +1 and m = −1. It is shown that this beam can stably pull a wide range of dielectric microparticles arbitrarily long distances, independent of ambient conditions. Next, a straightforward method of generating these high performance beams is proposed. A Si metasurface transforms an incident linearly polarized Gaussian beam into the desired tractor beam. Full-wave simulations demonstrate that it is possible for this simple geometry to pull a polystyrene sphere a distance equal to the non-diffracting range of the Bessel beam. The simplicity of the setup and the robust performance of the proposed tractor beam significantly enhance the ability to manipulate matter with light.

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Optical pulling force

Cited by 613 publications

References 28 publications

Photon momentum transfer in inhomogeneous dielectric mixtures and induced tractor beams

Photon momentum transfer in inhomogeneous dielectric mixtures and induced tractor beams

Magnetic and electric coherence in forward- and back-scattered electromagnetic waves by a single dielectric subwavelength sphere

Generating stable tractor beams with dielectric metasurfaces

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