Lateral optical binding between two colloidal particles

Ming-Tzo Wei; Jack Ng; C T Chan; H Daniel Ou-Yang

doi:10.1038/srep38883

Lateral optical binding between two colloidal particles

Sci Rep. 2016 Dec 16:6:38883. doi: 10.1038/srep38883.

Authors

Ming-Tzo Wei¹, Jack Ng², C T Chan³, H Daniel Ou-Yang^{1

4}

Affiliations

¹ Bioengineering Program, Lehigh University, USA.
² Department of Physics and Institute of Computational and Theoretical Studies, Hong Kong Baptist University, Hong Kong.
³ Physics Department, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Hong Kong.
⁴ Physics Department, Lehigh University, USA.

Abstract

An optical binding force between two nearby colloidal particles trapped by two coherent laser beams is measured by phase-sensitive detection. The binding force is long-range and spatially oscillatory. For identical linearly-polarized incident beams, the oscillation period is equal to the optical wavelength. For mutually perpendicular polarizations, a new force appears with half-wavelength periodicity, caused by double inter-particle scattering. This force is observable only with cross-polarized incident beams, for which the stronger single-scattering forces are forbidden by parity.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.