‘Photonic Hook’ based optomechanical nanoparticle manipulator

Karabchevsky, Alina and Ang, Angeleene S. and Minin, Igor V. and Minin, Oleg V. and Sukhov, Sergey V. and Shalin, Alexander S. (2018) ‘Photonic Hook’ based optomechanical nanoparticle manipulator. Scientific Reports, 8: 2029. ISSN 2045-2322

Abstract

Specialized electromagnetic fields can be used for nanoparticle manipulation along a specific path, allowing enhanced transport and control over the particle’s motion. In this paper, we investigate the optical forces produced by a curved photonic jet, otherwise known as the “photonic hook”, created using an asymmetric cuboid. In our case, this cuboid is formed by appending a triangular prism to one side of a cube. A gold nanoparticle immersed in the cuboid’s transmitted field moves in a curved trajectory. This result could be used for moving nanoparticles around obstacles; hence we also consider the changes in the photonic hook’s forces when relatively large glass and gold obstacles are introduced at the region where the curved photonic jet is created. We show, that despite the obstacles, perturbing the field distribution, a particle can move around glass obstacles of a certain thickness. For larger glass slabs, the particle will be trapped stably near it. Moreover, we noticed that a partial obstruction of the photonic jet’s field using the gold obstacle results in a complete disruption of the particle’s trajectory.