Conservative and Nonconservative Torques in Optical Binding

    Authors

    D. Haefner; S. Sukhov;A. Dogariu

    Comments

    Authors: contact us about adding a copy of your work at STARS@ucf.edu

    Abbreviated Journal Title

    Phys. Rev. Lett.

    Keywords

    MICROSCOPIC PARTICLES; LASER-BEAM; FORCE; ARRAYS; SPHERE; Physics, Multidisciplinary

    Abstract

    We show that in the canonical case of two lossless spheres that are electromagnetically coupled there is interplay between conservative and nonconservative forces, which is controlled by the polarization of the bounding field. We demonstrate that this phenomenon leads to new mechanisms to induce torques on spherically symmetric, optically isotropic, and lossless objects. The electromagnetic interaction can be exploited to apply orbital torque about the mutual center of mass of the bounded spheres as well as spin around the individual axes. When the incident field is linearly polarized, the torques are mostly conservative and affect only transient behaviors while for circularly polarized fields, the torques are entirely nonconservative, resulting in steady rotations. Means to control the magnitudes of orbital and spin torques are presented and applications to nanorotator machines are discussed.

    Journal Title

    Physical Review Letters

    Volume

    103

    Issue/Number

    17

    Publication Date

    1-1-2009

    Document Type

    Article

    Language

    English

    First Page

    4

    WOS Identifier

    WOS:000271164500024

    ISSN

    0031-9007

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