Search

In photonic systems, bilayer or multilayer systems exhibit numerous exciting phenomena induced by twisting. Thus, it is highly desired to explore the twisting effect by engineering the light-matter interactions. Optical torque, an important means in optical micromanipulation, can rotate micro-objects in various ways, enabling a wide range of promising applications. In this study, we present an interesting phenomenon called "pure optical twist" (POT), which emerges when a bilayer structure with specific symmetry is illuminated by counter-propagating lights with opposite spin and/or orbital angular momentum. Remarkably, this leads to zero net optical torque but yet possesses an interesting mechanical effect of bilayer system twisting. The crucial determinant of this phenomenon is the rotational symmetries of each layer, which govern the allowed azimuthal channels of the scattered wave. When the rotational symmetries do not allow these channels to overlap, no resultant torque is observed. Our work will encourage further exploration of the twisting effect through engineered light-matter interactions. This opens up the possibility of creating twisted bilayer systems using optical means, and constructing a stable bilayer optical motor that maintains identical rotation frequencies for both layers.

Based on the full wave simulation, we demonstrate that a circularly polarized vector Airy beam can selectively transport small chiral particles along a curved trajectory via the chirality-tailored optical forces. The transverse optical forces can draw the chiral particles with different particle chirality towards or away from the intensity maxima of the beam, leading to the selective trapping in the transverse plane. The transversely trapped chiral particles are then accelerated along a curved trajectory of the Airy beam by the chirality-tailored longitudinal scattering force, rendering an alternative way to sort and/or transport chiral particles with specified helicity. Finally, the underlying physics of the chirality induced transverse trap and de-trap phenomena are examined by the analytical theory within the dipole approximation.

Based on the generalized Lorenz-Mie theory and the Maxwell stress tensor approach we present the first rigorous full-wave solution of the optical forces acting on spherical microparticles immersed in a two-dimensional vector Airy beam beyond the paraxial approximation. The critical aspect lies in evaluating efficiently and accurately the partial wave expansion coefficients of the incident Airy beam, which are achieved by using the vector angular spectrum representation for a variety of polarizations. The optical field distributions are then simulated to show the self-accelerating and self-healing effects of the Airy beam. The dielectric and gold microparticles are shown to be trapped within the main lobe or the nearby side-lobes mostly by the transverse gradient optical force while driven forward along the parabolic trajectory of the Airy beam by the longitudinal scattering force. It is thus demonstrated theoretically that the vector Airy beam has the capability of precisely transporting both dielectric and metallic microparticles along the prespecified curved paths.

Based on an expansion formula for unit dyadic in terms of the vector spherical wave functions, we derive explicit partial wave coefficients for a complex wave vector field that is characterized by a single wave vector with three Cartesian components being arbitrarily constant complex except subject to lossless background constraint and thus includes evanescent waves and simple plasmonic fields as its two special cases. A recurrence method is then proposed to evaluate the partial wave expansion coefficients numerically up to arbitrary order of expansion, offering an efficient tool for the scattering of generic electromagnetic fields that can be modelled by a superposition of the complex wave vector fields such as the evanescent and plasmonic waves. Our approach is validated by analytically working out the integration in the conventional, more cumbersome, projection approach. Comparison of optical forces on a particle in evanescent and plasmonic fields with previous results shows perfect agreement, thereby further corroborating our approach. As examples of its application, we calculate optical force and torque exerting on particles residing in a plasmonic field, with large particle size where the conventional projection method based on the direct numerical integration is unadapted due to the difficulty in convergence. It is found that the direction of optical torque stays parallel to the direction of spin of optical field for some field polarizations and changes for some other polarizations, as the particle radius R varies.

We demonstrate that a lateral optical force (LOF) can be induced on paired chiral nanoparticles with opposite handedness under the illumination of a linearly polarized plane wave. The LOFs on both chiral particles are equal and thus can move the pair sideways, with the direction depending on the separation between two particles, as well as the handedness of particle chirality. Analytical theory reveals that the LOF comes largely from the optical potential gradient established by the multiple scattering of light between the paired particles with asymmetric chirality. In addition, it is weakly dependent on the material loss of a particle, a feature of gradient force, while heavily dependent on the magnitude and handedness of particle chirality. The effect is expected to find applications in sorting and separating chiral dimers of different handedness.

Laser induced stress on spherical water droplets is studied. At mechanical equilibrium, the body stress vanishes therefore we consider only the surface stress. The surface stress on sub-wavelength droplets is slightly weaker along the light propagation direction. For larger droplets, due to their light focusing effect, the forward stress is significantly enhanced. For a particle roughly 3 micron in radius, when it is excited at whispering gallery mode with Q ∼ 10⁴ by a 1 Watt Gaussian beam, the stress can be enhanced by two orders of magnitude, and can be comparable with the Laplace pressure.

We discuss a new kind of optical vortex with the angular momentum perpendicular to the flow direction and entangled in that it is a coherent combination of different orbital angular momentum states of the same sign. This entangled state exhibits many unexpected physical properties. The transverse optical vortex can be generated from the reflection of an electromagnetic wave off an array of ferrite rods. Its vorticity can be reversed by switching the direction of the magnetization of the rods, which usually takes only a nanosecond.

Optical forces are calculated for a dielectric spherical particle illuminated by a zero-order Bessel beam based on both the generalized Lorenz-Mie theory (GLMT) and the ray optics method (ROM). Particles with positive and negative refractive indices are examined. The peculiar characteristics of the Bessel beam allow for analytical expressions for the beam shape coefficients required in the GLMT as well as a decomposition of optical force into the gradient and the scattering forces irrespective of the particle size, which enable respective comparisons for the gradient and scattering forces between the results obtained from the GLMT and the ROM. Our results demonstrate that the discrepancy between the results obtained from the GLMT and the ROM depends on the particle refractive index n p , the particle size, and, also, the particle location in the beam field. As the particle size increases, the difference between the results from the GLMT and the ROM shows a general tendency of decreasing, as can be expected, but the change may exhibit oscillatory rather than monotonic behavior. A phase diagram is presented that displays the regime for particle size and refractive index where a specified accuracy can be achieved for optical force by the ROM.

It is known that core-shell subwavelength nanoparticles consisting of a dielectric shell and a metallic core can simultaneously support electric and magnetic dipolar resonances, which enhance forward scattering and suppress backward scattering. This creates favorable conditions for optical tractor beam applications. Using the generalized Lorenz-Mie theory and Maxwell stress tensor formulation, we demonstrate how optical pulling forces can be induced and optimized by first-order Bessel beams with appropriate polarization. The transverse stability of the core-shell nanoparticle under ambient damping is also verified by linear stability analysis and dynamical simulation.

We demonstrate a remarkable enhancement of isotropic radiation via radially anisotropic zero-index metamaterial (RAZIM). The radiation power can be enhanced by an order of magnitude when a line source and a dielectric particle is enclosed by a RAZIM shell. Based on the extended Mie theory, we illustrate that the basic physics of this isotropic radiation enhancement lies in the confinement of higher order anisotropic modes by the RAZIM shell. The confinement results in some high field regions within the RAZIM shell and thus enables strong scattering from the dielectric particle therein, giving rise to a giant amplification of isotropic radiation out of the system. The influence of the loss inherent in the RAZIM shell is also examined. It is found that the attenuation of omnidirectional power enhancement due to the loss in the RAZIM can be compensated by gain particles.

We propose an effective-medium theory (EMT) for the surface charged dielectric nanoparticles (CDNPs) in the long wavelength limit, in which a homogenous CDNP is demonstrated to be equivalent to a conventional absorbing neutral particle of the same size but with different constitutive parameters (effective permittivity εe and effective permeability μe). It is found that while the surface charge induces negligible change of magnetic permeability in particle, it gives rise to a significant change of electric permittivity. The change in permittivity depends on the charge, the particle size, and the working frequency but is independent of the constituent material. In infrared frequencies, both the real and imaginary parts of the particle permittivity may be changed considerably by surface charging. At higher frequency, the surface charge can lead to a remarkable decrease in the real part of the permittivity while keeping its imaginary part nearly unchanged. Therefore, based on EMT we can tailor the optical properties of CDNPs by optimizing their parameters, allowing for many exotic phenomena, such as vanishing scattering efficiency, great enhancement of light absorption efficiency, and surface charge induced surface plasmon resonance.

In present work, we demonstrate an optical cloak and illusion by appropriate design of a cluster of active sources. As pointed out by Vasquez and coworkers, the merit of such proposal with active controls is to overcome the drawback of narrow operating frequency and intrinsic loss inherent in the cloaking device made of metamaterials. Accordingly, the illusion device designed thuswise has a broadband operating frequency. By use of the rigorous multiple scattering theory, we have performed the simulations. It is shown that the active illusion device can be used as an beam rotator. In particular, we have shown that the active sources can even be reduced to dipole ones, which is expected to enable much easier experimental implementation of the cloaking and illusion effect.

A method is described for measuring the potential energy of nanoparticles in an optical trap by trapping an ensemble of particles with a focused laser beam. The force balance between repulsive osmotic and confining gradient-force pressures determines the single-particle trapping potential independent of interactions between the particles. The ensemble nature of the measurement permits evaluation of single-particle trapping energies much smaller than k B T. Energies obtained by this method are compared to those of single-particle methods as well as to theoretical calculations based on classical electromagnetic optics.

Explicit partial wave coefficients are derived for nondiffractive vector Bessel beam of arbitrary order and polarization. Calculations based on the analytical partial wave expansion yield results that agree well with recent numerical calculations and experiments on optical binding. We have also investigated how one can tailor the interparticle interaction by overlaying different coatings. It is found that the Ag and low dielectric coating can increase the number of equilibrium positions, whereas the antireflection coating reduces it.

Based on the effective medium theory, we designed a simplified transformation media bending waveguide by use of only three kinds of isotropic material in an alternating layered structure. The design can be used to guide incoming waves smoothly along the bending part of a waveguide with slight distortions. Numerical simulations are performed to illustrate its functionality.

We examine manipulating the electromagnetic (EM) wave with an external static magnetic field (ESMF) taking advantage of the versatility of the magnetic photonic crystal (PC). The effect of a nonuniform ESMF on the permeability of the constituent magnetic material in the PC is demonstrated to create a gradient of the effective optical index in the crystal, leading to the focusing of the EM wave, with a magnetically tunable focal length, focused waist radius, and the intensity at the focus.

A simple method is presented which, when incorporated into a simple symbolic computation code, can be used to derive the analytic perturbative Lax series for electromagnetic fields of a focused radially polarized Gaussian laser beam, up to an arbitrary power of epsilon. Here epsilon is the associated Gaussian beam diffraction angle. The method is expected to be useful, when applied with a suitable nonlinear resummation scheme, in obtaining a precise field description for focusing the output beam from an axicon.

We consider the resonant optical force acting on a pair of transparent microspheres by the excitation of morphology-dependent resonance (MDR). The bonding and antibonding modes of the MDR correspond to strong attraction and repulsion, respectively. The dependence of the force on separation and the role of absorption are discussed. At resonance, the force can be enhanced by orders of magnitude such that it will dominate other relevant forces. We found that a stable binding configuration can be induced by the resonant optical force.

We present an analytical calculation of the radiation torque on a spherical birefringent particle illuminated by plane electromagnetic wave of arbitrary polarization mode and direction of propagation in the small particle limit. The calculation is based on the extended Mie theory and the Maxwell stress tensor formalism. It is found that, even in the small particle limit, the torque is not always normal to the external electric field for the linearly polarized light. For different incident directions and polarization modes of the incident light, the radiation torque tau may exhibit different types of power law dependence on the particle radius a, tau ~ a gamma, with the exponent gamma = 3, 5, and 6. In the presence of viscous drag, the extraordinary axis of the illuminated particle may be aligned by the optical torque with the incident electric field, the incident magnetic field, or, the incident wave vector, depending on the incident polarization mode and material birefringence of the particle.