Parametric study of optical forces acting upon nanoparticles in a single, or a standing, evanescent wave

Martin Šiler and Pavel Zemánek

We compare four different methods for calculating the optical forces acting upon nanoparticles illuminated either by a single evanescent wave or by an interference field of two counter-propagating coherent evanescent waves (standing evanescent wave). Two of the employed methods consider the effect of multiple reflections of the scattered field from the water–prism interface that generates the illuminating evanescent wave(s). Subsequently, we present a parametric study of the optical forces acting upon nanoparticles for different polarizations and propagation constants of the illuminating evanescent wave, particle sizes and refractive indices.

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