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Extracting the potential-well of a near-field optical trap using the Helmholtz-Hodge decomposition

Authors :
Punnag Padhy
Lambertus Hesselink
Mohammad Asif Zaman
Paul Hansen
Source :
Applied Physics Letters. 112:091103
Publication Year :
2018
Publisher :
AIP Publishing, 2018.

Abstract

The non-conservative nature of the force field generated by a near-field optical trap is analyzed. A plasmonic C-shaped engraving on a gold film is considered as the trap. The force field is calculated using the Maxwell stress tensor method. The Helmholtz-Hodge decomposition is used to extract the conservative and the non-conservative component of the force. Due to the non-negligible non-conservative component, it is found that the conventional approach of extracting the potential by direct integration of the force is not accurate. Despite the non-conservative nature of the force field, it is found that the statistical properties of a trapped nanoparticle can be estimated from the conservative component of the force field alone. Experimental and numerical results are presented to support the claims.

Details

ISSN :
10773118 and 00036951
Volume :
112
Database :
OpenAIRE
Journal :
Applied Physics Letters
Accession number :
edsair.doi...........2715e60c3cc0b4ce354faf75e191ddf0
Full Text :
https://doi.org/10.1063/1.5016810