Electromagnetic forces and torques in nanoparticles irradiated by a plane wave

Abstract

Optical tweezers and optical lattices are making it possible to control small particles by means of electromagnetic forces and torques. In this context, a method is presented in this work to calculate electromagnetic forces and torques for arbitrarily-shaped objects in the presence of other objects illuminated by a plane wave. The method is based upon an expansion of the electromagnetic field in terms of multipoles around each object, which are in turn used to derive forces and torques analytically. The calculation of multipole coefficients are obtained numerically by means of the boundary element method. Results are presented for both spherical and non-spherical objects.