Question
Asked 29th Jan, 2019

Can anyone introduce a review paper about different methods of optical force calculation?

Hi,
Maxwell Stress Tensor (MST) method is usually used to calculate the optical force exerted on an object. However, my question is about the applicability range of this method. When do we use MST method and when we prefer to use other methods. Is there any reference that explains about different methods of optical force calculation?
Thanks in advance

All Answers (3)

Hamed Pezeshki
Eindhoven University of Technology
I provide name of few majors papers in this regard, the 3rd one specifically determined when we can use which method etc.
1- Optical trapping by Neuman and Block
2-Lights, action: optical tweezers by Molloy and Padgett
3-Optical trapping and manipulation of plasmonic
nanoparticles: fundamentals, applications, and
perspectives by Urban
I hope these help you out.
Shubo Wang
City University of Hong Kong
As long as the objects are in vacuum/air, there is no problem to use MST to compute the optical forces. In fact, MST, Abraham, Minkowski, and Einstein-Laub tensors all give the same result of optical force.
However, when it comes to objects in a medium, different methods predict different results and there are issues such as how to separate field momentum and material momentum. As far as I know, there is no stress tensor that can predict forces which agree with all experimental results yet.
Here are several papers of mine and my collaborators discussing the applicability of different methods. We found that, in a medium, optical force actually depends on lattice symmetry of the microstructures, and radiation pressure on a surface can become radiation tension.
  • "Electromagnetic stress at the boundary: Photon pressure or tension?", S. Wang, J. Ng, M. Xiao, and C.T. Chan, Science Advances 2, e1501485 (2016).
  • "Analytic derivation of electrostrictive tensors and their application to optical force density calculations", W. Sun, S.B. Wang, J. Ng, L. Zhou, and C.T. Chan, Physical Review B 91, 235439 (2015).
  • "Closed-form expressions for effective constitutive parameters: Electrostrictive and magnetostrictive tensors for bianisotropic metamaterials and their use in optical force density calculations", N. Wang, S. Wang, Z.Q. Zhang, and C.T. Chan, Physical Review B 98, 045426 (2018).
  • "Electromagnetic stress tensor for an amorphous metamaterial medium", N. Wang, S. Wang, and J. Ng, Physical Review A 97, 033839 (2018).

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